Nothing like a week off to help shake off a three-game losing streak.
Center Grove scored 31 points in the first seven minutes and 12 seconds of play and kept on rolling to a 72-7 victory at Jeffersonville in Class 6A sectional semifinal action on Friday.
“Our kids played hard and sharp,” Trojans coach Eric Moore said. “We had a really bad taste in our mouth, and we needed to get rid of it.”
The Trojans (6-4) will try for their 14th consecutive sectional championship when they host Franklin Central, which was a 21-17 winner at No. 7 Columbus North.
Center Grove got into the red zone on its opening drive but had to settle for a 36-yard field goal by Dallas Cornpropst — and preventing a touchdown there was about as close to a highlight as Jeffersonville had in the first half.
A three-and-out gave Center Grove a short field for a three-play, 41-yard drive that ended with a 10-yard toss from McWilliams to Dominick Barry at the 7:19 mark, and a fumble on the Red Devils’ next series led to a 27-yard scoop and score by Luke Barrett just 19 seconds later.
Barrett’s fumble return was the Trojans’ first defensive touchdown of the season.
Jeffersonville then turned it over on downs to again set Center Grove up in plus territory, and it took just three plays for Austin Hennessy to find the end zone on an 18-yard run up the middle. Kicking off from the Red Devils’ 30-yard line after a couple of post-TD penalties, the Trojans had senior Charlie Habig — a soccer standout making his gridiron debut — try an onside kick, and it was recovered at the 19. Following an 18-yard run by Brady Dicken, Jack Browning punched it in from the 1 to make it 31-0 with 4:48 still remaining in the opening period.
After another Red Devil punt, McWilliams found Tristan Baxter for a 38-yard pass to the 16, and Hennessy scored from the 5 two plays later for the final tally of the quarter. Jeffersonville finally got into Center Grove territory with a long kickoff return by Cam Hollaway, but the Trojan defense held and took over four snaps later at its own 32-yard line. McWilliams then hit a diving McClurg in the end zone for a 21-yard score early in the second quarter to stretch the margin to 45.
McWilliams connected with Baxter on a 13-yard TD pass with 6:34 to go in the half, and Barrett then scored his second defensive touchdown of the game on a 36-yard interception return less than two minutes later, prompting Moore to pull his starters for the remainder of the evening.
The second string kept the train rolling, as freshman Oscar Sloan threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Charlie Annee to cap the first-half scoring at 66-0.
Jeffersonville had first and goal to start the third after a long catch and run by Hollaway, but the Trojans forced a turnover and then drove into the Red Devil red zone before an interception return touchdown by Caleb Bale finally got the home team on the board in the waning seconds of the quarter.
Sophomore Brodie Tilton iced it for Center Grove with a 70-yard touchdown run on what turned out to be the final play of the game.
McWilliams and Sloan were a combined 12 of 15 passing for 184 yards; eight different receivers caught passes. Tilton had 91 yards rushing and Hennessy 61, with nobody touching the ball more than six times in the rout.
Moore knows that next week’s game against the Flashes should be considerably more challenging.
“They’re a good team, and they’re going to want to win,” he said. “We’ve had our way with them the last four or five years, and they’re going to want to win. … But we’re not going to see anything we haven’t seen. We’ve seen every great team; they’re just another good team, you know?”
