“It’s a gutsy win. I was just glad the boys hung in there and continued to play and believe. We made plays when we needed to,” Corn Bible Academy offensive coach Brendan Schmidt said after his team won 12-6 in overtime against Thackerville Friday night.
It was a low-scoring game, and with seconds on the clock, the game was tied, 6-6, and the Thackerville Wildcats had the ball only four yards from the end zone.
In 11-man football, this would have been the time to kick a field goal and end the game. However in 8 man football, field goals are rarely kicked as they are difficult to execute with that number of players on the field.
The Crusaders had just 11 players for the game. Even though nearly every athlete had played each down, the team managed to make the four defensive plays they needed to send the game to overtime. The last stop came from junior Aiden Whinery who made a big tackle with 3 seconds left.
Head coach Asa Zoschke had encouragement for his team after the regulation time for the game came to an end. In the huddle he said, “We just stopped them with four plays from the four yard line; I think we can do it from the 10. Let’s go get us a stop and punch it in.”
The Wildcats were the first to get the ball on offense in overtime, getting four downs to try and score a touchdown from the 10 yard line.
Once again, the Crusader defense remained strong and kept their opponent from scoring.
When CBA looked to score, the first down yielded an unsuccessful passing play. On the second down, a quarterback scramble from senior Carson Schmidt led to a touchdown and Crusader victory.
“It was designed to be a pass to Micah, and then everything broke down. To their credit, they covered Micah well,” Schmidt said. “That’s what you want your quarterback to do is to go make plays when you need him to go make plays.”
This Friday, the Crusaders take on Canton, a school which is a class size bigger than CBA. The Tigers are 2-1 this season, like the Crusaders, but they handily beat the class C teams they have played so far.
The Crusaders are focusing on fundamentals this week to help them face their opponent. “We’ll work on individual fundamentals. It always comes down to tackling and blocking, so that is what we’re going to work on in practice,” Zoschke said.
Schmidt had similar goals. He said, “We’re going to go back to the basics. Our effort was great this game but our execution was poor. What we want to do is go back and correct our execution and eliminate the problems we had and continue to believe in each other, believe in the process and continue to play.”
Aiden Hartman went 1-2 in Monday’s game against Riverside for Hydro-Eakly.
Montgomery Malone/WDN
Brendan Schmidt scores the winning touchdown for Corn Bible.
Kimberly Lippencott/WDN
A trio of Thomas-Fay-Custer Terriers bring down a Cashion player in Friday’s game.
Kimberly Lippencott/WDN