With 79 seconds left in Friday night’s showdown between Class 6A No. 1 Center Grove and Class 5A No. 1 Cathedral, the visiting Fighting Irish had a decision to make.
Up by three points and faced with fourth and 1 at the Trojans’ 44, Cathedral could have punted the ball away to a Center Grove offense that didn’t have any timeouts to work with. Instead, the Irish opted to go for the knockout against the best defense in the state.
You come at the king, you best not miss.
Center Grove’s D came up with a critical stop, and junior quarterback Tayven Jackson — who’d struggled through an up-and-down night to that point — engineered a brilliant touchdown drive to lift the Trojans to a 17-13 victory in an epic clash of unbeatens that wound up living up to the hype.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery"For whatever reason, we got flat at times in the game and made some mistakes, but we overcome," Center Grove coach Eric Moore said. "That’s what the game teaches you, and life, to overcome. And we’re undefeated, man. This is an unbelievable season."
Jackson, who was 4 for 4 passing on the last possession for 52 yards, connected with senior wideout Trent Veith on back-to-back throws of 17 and 14 yards to cap the 54-yard march, the latter for the winning score with 16.4 seconds left on the clock.
"That corner was sitting on my inside hip, and right from there I knew it was over," Veith said of the final scoring pass.
Center Grove’s defense ended the game with back-to-back sacks of Irish quarterback Nathan McCahill, with the second one from senior linebacker Trey Clark putting a cap on the night.
The Trojans (9-0) finished the night with a 332-180 advantage in total yardage but still trailed late after Cathedral linebacker John Paul Koscielski returned his second interception of the game 73 yards up the right sideline to put the Fighting Irish (8-1) ahead 13-10 with 5:10 remaining in the third quarter. Prior to the decisive touchdown, Center Grove had gone more than 28 minutes without scoring.
Jackson finished the night 12 of 21 passing for 184 yards, two TDs and the two interceptions. Carson Steele rushed for 127 yards on 21 carries.
Center Grove had the better of the action early on, getting a defensive stop on the game’s opening possession and following up with a 10-play, 78-yard touchdown drive. A 28-yard run by Steele pushed the ball across midfield, and Jackson finished off the march with a 7-yard scoring throw to an open Connor Delp in the end zone.
A 34-yard field goal by Austin Watson with 4:55 remaining in the half gave the Trojans a 10-0 lead and a feeling of command, but the Irish were able to get some momentum going late in the second quarter. Nathan McCahill found Jaron Tibbs over the middle with a 46-yard bomb to set up a 15-yard touchdown pass to David Perry. Cathedral went for two and missed but was back within 10-6 going into the intermission.
After Koscielski’s pick-six, neither team scored again until the winning drive. Watson had a 30-yard field goal attempt to tie it with 3:22 remaining in the fourth but it came up just short, perhaps the result of an Irish defender getting a piece of the ball.
Cathedral then picked up a pair of first downs behind running back Jake Langdon and forced Center Grove to burn all three of its timeouts — but the Trojans’ defense, so dominant all season long, did what it needed to do to give the team another shot.
"I knew 100 percent that the defense was going to get the ball back in our hands," Jackson said.
Though happy to finish the regular season 9-0, Moore made sure to remind his team that the real season begins in two weeks with a sectional semifinal game at Columbus North.
"It’s awful good to go into the postseason undefeated on a winning streak like this," Moore said, "but I think we got humbled a little bit tonight in the fact that every game counts — and now, it’s go-home time. With that, you can’t so tight, though, that you play bad. We’ve got to go take a trip to Columbus and try to win down there, and try to get the field tilted and play hard defense."
"It’s a great feeling going undefeated, but that doesn’t matter in the long run," Jackson added. "We’re trying to go to Lucas Oil; we’re going to go there together as a team."
