The streak is over: South Bend Clay football routs North Newton for first win in 34 tries

SOUTH BEND – As Tommy Sconiers finished going through the handshake line, he walked toward the west end zone.

“We did it, man,” Sconiers said aloud to himself.

The losing streak was over. As the team called it, the curse was over.

South Bend Clay had won a football game.

For the first time since Aug. 21, 2020, the Colonials were victorious, a 54-0 drubbing of North Newton Saturday at Clay Field. It snapped a 34-game losing streak, and it was the first win over an IHSAA team since a 14-8 victory over Hammond in 2019.

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As the final moments of the game transpired, Clay head coach Darius Mitchell had two players in mind.

“Dominic and Jeremy,” Darius said.

Both Dominic Mitchell and Jeremy Cleveland were starters as freshmen the last time the Colonials won, 7-0 over Osceola Grace to start the 2020 season. It was the first career game for both players.

They had to wait 1,136 days for its next victory.

For Dominic, there’s extra meaning with his dad being the head coach.

“I feel like I did him well,” said Dominic of his father. “He was on the verge of quitting coaching. He always thought about it, but I told him to stick with it. I told him, ‘I’m going to get him one,’ and I sure did it today.”

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It could’ve been easy for Cleveland to quit or transfer to another school with a chance at winning more games, like others at Clay have done.

He didn’t, though, instead sticking it out with Mitchell and the other nine seniors on the team.

“The love for this sport, man,” said Cleveland of why he stayed at Clay. “I love my teammates, they’re great. … We’re close. We hang out a lot; always at the lunch table together. We usually go out together. We’re going to go out and celebrate after this one, obviously.”

The game wasn’t much of a game Saturday. Junior Liam Wolf threw a 55-yard touchdown pass to senior Jeremiah Cherry on the second play from scrimmage to put the Colonials up, 6-0.

Cleveland then intercepted the first North Newton play of the game, running it back 40 yards for a touchdown. In less than 90 seconds, Clay led, 12-0.

“It felt great on the pick-six because we knew it was coming,” Darius Mitchell noted. “We were telling (Cleveland), ‘That slant is coming. If he motions out, be ready for the slant.’”

Mitchell then added in a joking tone, “He actually listened this time.”

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A 48-yard touchdown run by junior Karon Miller, followed by a two-point pass from Wolf to Shaquille Edwards, made it 20-0 at the end of the first quarter.

A pair of touchdown passes from Wolf to sophomore Tyrese Jones in the second quarter, one for 17 yards and another for 55, made it 34-0 Colonials at halftime.

The running clock started in the third quarter when Wolf found Edwards for a touchdown pass. Miller ran in a score early in the fourth. Jones punctuated the victory with a 70-yard pick-six as time expired.

The party started on the Clay sideline as Jones ran toward the end zone. Years of frustration were going away with each passing yard Jones romped down the home team’s sideline.

Smiles and hugs were in abundance for several minutes afterwards.

“I can’t even put it into words,” Dominic Mitchell said. “It’s a mixture. I want to cry. I want to jump for joy, but I hurt my leg. It’s a lot. I’m so happy.”

Two players made sure coach Mitchell had an early shower, dousing him with a water cooler after the game.

“It felt great,” Darius Mitchell remarked. “I felt they might do something, but it felt great. I didn’t even try to dodge it because I wanted the cold. It was a little hot out here.”

Magnifying the win is Clay’s eminent closing, coming at the end of the school year. This team was determined to not have a proud program go out with a long losing streak.

On Saturday, they ensured that wouldn’t happen.

“It’s been a wild ride,” Cleveland said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment a long time. It’s unbelievable.”

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Clay will not play a varsity team again until sectionals. John Glenn and Bremen are playing its JV teams against the Colonials, with their respective varsity teams scheduling Tippecanoe Valley instead. Glenn and Bremen will be joining Valley, along with three others, in a new conference next year.

It’ll be the second and third JV teams Clay plays this year. They lost to Jimtown’s squad, 14-6, last week.

The last four varsity games for Clay before Saturday weren’t pretty, losing by a combined 229-18. The players never wavered, though, and were rewarded with the program’s biggest victory since a 35-0 shutout of South Bend Riley in 2014.

“We’re not done,” Darius Mitchell said. “We definitely feel like we can win our next two, and then we’ll roll into sectionals and see what happens.”

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend Clay football wins first game since 2020 with rout of North Newton