TERRE HAUTE
Usually throwing passes 40 yards downfield isn’t the high-percentage play in high school football, but it was Friday night.
Normally, a team that gets outrushed 240-53 doesn’t win a high school football game, but Terre Haute South did Friday night, getting a pair of spectacular touchdown passes from Brady Wilson in a 14-10 win over Franklin in Class 5A sectional semifinal play.
The Braves (5-5) play for the championship next Friday at Whiteland.
The visiting Grizzly Cubs looked like they were going to dominate Friday’s game when they marched 80 yards on 11 running plays to take a 7-0 lead after more than half the first quarter had been played, then marching deep into South territory on their second drive.
But instead of scoring, the visitors fumbled the ball at the 3-yard line, and the Braves had them right where they wanted.
South drove 97 yards in 10 plays for a tying touchdown, getting a pair of clutch first-down catches by tight end Chris Herrin, overcoming three penalties and scoring when Wilson lofted a perfect ball into the right corner of the end zone and Herrin made the catch with 1:03 left before halftime.
“All I had to do was throw right to that spot,” an excited Wilson said after the game. “It was big for us to score just before the half.”
South was getting the second-half kickoff and hoping to continue that momentum, but the Cubs had other ideas. Twice the Braves went three and out in the third quarter.
But Franklin’s first second-half drive was thwarted when the Cubs had a bad snap of their own. And on the second Franklin drive, the Cubs took nearly five minutes and got inside the 10-yard line, but the Braves forced a 20-yard J.D. Sever field goal on the first play of the fourth quarter.
“I thought our defense, in the second half, bowed their necks,” Braves coach Tim Herrin said, “and holding them to that field goal was huge.”
The Braves went three and out again, but so did Franklin, although its punt was downed at the 2-yard line.
Again, South had its visitors right where it wanted. This time a 98-yard scoring drive took just five plays — a 37-yard pass to Chris Herrin got the Braves out of bad field position, and then A.J. Watkins got himself wide open for a 58-yard connection for the go-ahead touchdown.
“Give credit to the coaches for that one,” Wilson said later. “We got a look (from the Franklin defense) that we’d seen before. They were focusing on Chris, and we knew A.J. would be open.”
But that far open?
“The whole time it was in the air, I was feeling, ‘Don’t fall down (which Watkins nearly did); don’t throw it too long,’” Wilson said.
“We knew we could get behind (Franklin’s defense) on a couple of different looks,” coach Herrin said. “And getting us out of the end zone (on the 37-yard pass) was a great throw and catch.”
Franklin quickly picked up a first down on a run by Alex Leugers, who rushed for 152 yards, but then South’s Treva Branch intercepted a sideline pass.
The Braves didn’t score, but time was on their side. Franklin got the ball with 2:58 left at its 16-yard line but the Cubs had a holding call — and an unsportsmanlike conduct call when the offender argued about it — and gave the ball up at their own 12-yard line, allowing Terre Haute South to kneel out the clock.
Wilson finished with 214 yards passing on just 10 completions.
“(The long pass) was kind of our best play,” he agreed after the game. “We had some long fields but we got out of them with those big plays.
“We’re really going to enjoy this one, and then come back and get a bigger (win) next week.”
