Seymour gets tricky, but South football treats itself to sectional title

SEYMOUR — Seymour threw everything it had at Bloomington South in the first 20 minutes.

The Owls tried playing keep away by milking the clock. They tried using different blocking assignments in the rematch. And they dug repeatedly into their bag of trick plays with reverses and passes off reverses tie the ballgame with 4:25 left in the second quarter.

South's veteran squad and coaching stuff just sorta shrugged their collective shoulders, never panicked and proceeded to bury Seymour in a 35-point avalanche in a span of about nine minutes to cart off the Class 5A Sectional 15 trophy for the third year in a row with a 49-14 road win Friday night.

"A lot of new stuff," South coach Gabe Johnson said. "I'm OK if teams do that to us. We kind of expect that. It's kind of us, settling down, figuring it out. But we eventually did.

"I understand why they did what they did. For me, it's important that we be able to come off and talk about it, and get it worked out and I think we made really good adjustments."

Seymour (6-5) had the ball almost 17 minutes of the first half and still trailed. Once South "figured it out," it was soon over.

"They were blocking up our scheme in a different way than they did in Week 9," South linebacker Duke Conrad said. "So in the first half, we didn't make that adjustment. We were able to make that adjustment in the second half and obviously, it really helped.

"We were able to settle down defensively and get some stops."

Seymour's prolific quarterback Bret Perry, who came in with over 3,000 yards passing this season, had only 100 in the Week 9 47-0 win for South. He had 88 by halftime as the Owls effectively mixed in runs and trick plays that kept South's defense on its toes a week after giving up over 400 passing yards to North. Perry was just 7-of-15 for 41 yards after the break.

"There was a lot of pressure," South safety Miles McKay said. "Especially because of last week we heard a lot of criticism for that. So we really wanted to come out strong today and prove that we can be a good secondary.

"I think we did accomplish that in the second half. We did come out a little slow, but we recovered well."

They also had three interceptions and the offense scored off two of them.

"They were everything," Conrad said. "Key turnovers that we needed, for sure."

South (10-1) will keep the buses parked next week, playing host to Evansville North (8-3), which won a 60-50 shootout over Castle, in the regional.

How Bloomington South's offense ticked off

When the teams met in Week 9, South won 47-0, which reflected better on the defense than the offense, which didn't pile up a lot of yards and needed some help from the defense and special teams to tip the scoreboard so lopsidedly.

So, quarterback Jarrin Alley and Co. decided to put on a better performance in the encore. Alley went 15-of-24 for 257 yards and five touchdowns (he now has 11 in the postseason), three went to D'Andre Black (7-107) and one to Lucas Waldon (7-152).

"It's the O-line," Alley said. "They're giving me so much time. I can go through 1, 2, 3 to 4 (on his reads) and then the receivers are obviously making great plays. They're so hard to tackle, so shifty, so strong."

Toss in 100 yards and a TD rushing and receiving from running back Gavin Adams as South piled up 202 yards on 23 carries and it was a show worth remembering this time.

"Our offense wasn't happy with how we played last time we played them," Alley said. "I know I wasn't happy with how I played. We were angry. We had something to prove to them."

Yes, South scored five touchdowns in 8:10

Seymour tied the game at 14 and from there, the Owls had the life and the lively home crowd sucked out of them like a burst balloon.

South drove 60 yards and finished it on a fourth-and-8 play from the 17 when Alley found Black, who like he did against North last week, caught a pass just inside the 10 and willed his way past several defenders and into the end zone for a 21-14 lead with 1:40 to halftime.

Two snaps later, Evan Roudebush picked off a pass at the Seymour 42 and there was a sense South was about to go off if it could convert before halftime with 1:26 remaining.

The drive started with a negative running play and an illegal shift flag. No matter as passes to Black and Waldon covered 32 yards and Adams ran to the 8 with 15.6 seconds left. Plenty of time for Alley to find Adams sneaking out of the backfield for the score with 10.4 seconds left to make it 28-14.

"Our kids rose and they didn't panic," Johnson said.

From there, Seymour had all of nine yards of offense in the third period.

South took the opening drive of the second half for a score, Miles McKay jumped a route and brought the ball back to the Owls' 30. Just 1:31 later, Alley rolled out and zipped a TD pass to Black from five yards out. South forced a three-and-out and Waldon took a swing pass 56 yards untouched.

"We kind of big-played them a little bit," Johnson said.

It was 49-14 and another running clock for the Panthers.

"We knew it was going to be a fight," Alley said. "We had to come out here and not leave it up to chance."

Special teams were the undersung heroes

South kicker Bryce Taylor was hurt near the end of the game last week and North and reaggravated his injured collarbone weightlifting on Monday, Johnson said.

Taylor's foot on kickoffs and punts has been huge this year in winning the field position battle.

It took three people to replace him as senior Anthony Perez drilled all seven extra points. Philip Wilkinsen and Connor Parker handled kickoffs, with Parker, a freshman, making a touchdown-saving tackle on the return after South's first score.

"I thought Parker and Wilkinsen did really good job coming in," Johnson said. "And putting them in this environment, which they hadn't been in and doing the job."

Another postseason injury

Drew Crum-Hieiftje got the pick party started on the 13th play of Seymour's initial drive, which had reached the 12. The Owls tried running a fake toss play for the second time on the possession in which quarterback Bret Perry instead fired a sidearm pass downfield.

He read it perfectly and stepped in front of the receiver.

But the senior didn't finish out the night, suffering what Johnson thought was a broken arm.

"We'll see if it's something we can cast and play," Johnson said. "If not, we've got a week to get someone ready."

BLOOMINGTON SOUTH 49, SEYMOUR 14

Bloomington South (10-1) 0 | 28 | 21 | 0 — 49

Seymour (6-5) 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 — 14

FIRST QUARTER

Sey: Jack Pennington 3 pass from Bret Perry (Pennington kick), :41.6. Sey, 7-0.

SECOND QUARTER

BS: Gavin Adam 4 run (Anthony Perez kick), 11:56. Tied, 7-7.

BS: D'Andre Black 39 pass from Jarrin Alley (Perez kick), 9:21. BS, 14-7.

Sey: Jaylan Johnson 5 pass from Perry (Pennington kick), 4:25. Tied, 14-14.

BS: Black 17 pass from Alley (Perez kick), 1:40. BS, 21-14.

BS: Adams 8 pass from Alley (Perez kick), 10.4. BS, 28-14.

THIRD QUARTER

BS: Lucas Waldon 2 run (Perez kick), 9:51. BS, 35-14.

BS: Black 5 pass from Alley (Perez kick), 6:32. BS, 42-14.

BS: Waldon 56 pass from Alley (Perez kick), 5:30. BS, 49-14.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING

Bloomington South (23-202): Gavin Adams 10-100, Braylen Townsend 2-35, Jarrin Alley 3-34, Ben Morrison 5-23, Lucas Waldon 2-10, Duncan Combs 1-(-1).

Seymour (23-71): Jack Pennington 3-36, Nick Wheeler 9-26, Cam Wheeler 6-11, Kyle Hileman 1-3, Jaylan Johnson 1-(-1), Bret Perry 3-(-4).

PASSING

Bloomington South (15-24-0-257): Alley 15-24-0-257.

Seymour (20-36-3-160): Perry 19-34-3-129, Johnson 1-2-0-31.

RECEIVING

Bloomington South: Waldon 7-152, Black 7-107, Adams 1-8.

Seymour: Pennington 9-68, Johnson 4-59, C.Wheeler 3-21, Sam Rockey 2-7, Hileman 1-4, N.Wheeler 1-1.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Seymour gets tricky, but South treats itself to sectional title