<p>Columbus East clearly hadn’t forgotten losing to Whiteland in last season’s opener.</p>
<p>Cole Gilley passed for 242 yards and three touchdowns, and Mark McDonald added two scores on the ground during a 100-yard rushing day as the Class 6A No. 10 Olympians rolled to a 40-19 payback win over the host Warriors on Friday.</p>
<p>"Our team was a lot more prepared than last year," Gilley said. "Last year, they came out with a lot more intensity than us, and that was an extra emphasis this week, coming out more intense and matching their intensity, and it paid off. It was just a good team win."</p>
<p>What started out as a back-and-forth affair turned into a rout over the late second and early third quarters, when the Olympians scored three unanswered touchdowns.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>Columbus East got on the board first, taking a 6-0 lead when Cole Gilley found a wide-open Dalton back for a 34-yard touchdown pass with 4:43 left in the opening quarter. Whiteland answered back three minutes later, with a 44-yard run from Desmen Singleton setting up a 2-yard quarterback keeper from Brant Kunz.</p>
<p>Mark McDonald put Columbus East back in front, 13-6, scoring from 2 yards out after a favorable swap of punts had set the Olympians up at the Warrior 31. But the home team again answered, as runs of 15 and 54 yards from Melvin Taylor set up another Kunz touchdown, this one from a yard out on third and goal.</p>
<p>Columbus East got the ball back with 2:54 left in the half and barely needed half of that time, going 80 yards in 90 seconds to take a 20-12 lead into the break. McDonald again finished off the march with a 2-yard plunge.</p>
<p>Gilley, who was 10 of 12 passing in the first half, continued to carve the Warriors up early in the third. He connected with Tyler Settle for a 53-yard score, and then after a Settle interception, he linked up with Zander Gentry for a 22-yard touchdown, stretching the lead to 33-12 with 9:34 to go in the third quarter.</p>
<p>"That was a big one," Columbus East coach Bob Gaddis said of the mid-game momentum shift. "When they won the toss and they took the ball, we told our defense, ‘That’s a big one, because if we can score at the end of the half and come back out and get after them, it’s going to turn the game in our favor.’"</p>
<p>Another long run from Taylor, this one a 51-yarder, set up Kunz’s third touchdown, a 1-yard sneak at the 7:08 mark. Whiteland had a chance to cut more off the deficit after a Conner Albright fumble recovery, but the ensuing drive ended on downs at the Olympians’ 10-yard line. The Warriors couldn’t get anything else going offensively after that, and Lance Greiwe tacked on 3-yard insurance score for Columbus East with 2:12 remaining.</p>
<p>Taylor paced the Whiteland offense with 147 yards on 12 rushes, but the Warriors struggled to consistently move the chains, while the Olympians had no such trouble.</p>
<p>"We missed some opportunities early on," Whiteland coach Darrin Fisher said. "There was nothing they did that surprised us; it was just at the beginning of the game, we didn’t execute.</p>
<p>"Part of it was we just had some young pups on the field. We’ll get better."</p>
<p>Whiteland will try to recover next week when it travels to Greenfield-Central.</p>
