YORKTOWN, Ind - The lights were bright at Yorktown High School last night as the 6-3 Tigers hosted the 4-5 Mt. Vernon Marauders. Yorktown played up to those lights, beating Mt. Vernon 28-27.
Yorktown’s victory came off of their relentless ground attack and strong defense. Head coach Mike Wilhelm was pleased with his team and the effort tonight after dropping a game against Pendleton Heights last week.
“Well, we just played horrible football last week against Pendleton [Heights],” he said. “Get beat 47 to 20 and we are not four touchdowns worse than Pendleton. Our guys knew that and our coaches knew that. It's mainly because we didn't fight on every play, which was the focus this entire week.”
Last night’s contest was a game of momentum. Back and forth throughout the night and both teams held the lead at least once. The Tigers got on the scoreboard first thanks to a short pass from sophomore quarterback Sam Tokar to sophomore Noah Long on Yorktown’s first drive of the game.
Both sidelines knew it would be a battle. Wilhelm told his team the game would be a fight for momentum, and whoever had it on their side for the majority would come out on top.
“[We’re both] momentum teams and that's why the score was so close,” Wilhelm said. “It was going back and forth and we were fortunate enough to win by one. That fight for momentum was the big focus, and our guys answered that.”
The first-half momentum shifted towards the Marauder sideline. Mt. Vernon scored to end the half on a quarterback keeper from sophomore Mason Meyer and had some more energy going into the locker room.
The Tigers received the kick to start the second half but were unable to get anything done after a handful of flags were thrown against them. Wilhelm kept telling his players to control what they can control.
“Control the controllable,” he said. “We can't control what happens beyond our effort, so I think it just fits right into what we talked about this entire week. Play football the right way, and don't worry about anything else.”
Mt. Vernon pulled away to start the second half after scoring within four plays of their possession. Yorktown followed up with a drive of continuous run plays. The Tigers ran the ball every down but one during the drive.
A majority of those runs came from senior Wilson Webster. After driving Yorktown into the red zone, Webster went down with an apparent leg injury. Yorktown continued utilizing a strong ground attack and scored two plays later. Pre-snap movement led to a hard-nosed rushing touchdown for Noah Long.
Wilhelm and his staff made the change at halftime and decided to use their ground game to wear down the Marauder defense, and they did so effectively.
“We made some adjustments at halftime,” he said. “Coach Early, our offensive coordinator said, ‘We're running the ball, let's play some smashmouth football.’ So we executed that in the second half, and had that huge drive at the end to run the clock out to give ourselves a chance to win this game.”
The momentum shifted once again on the very next play from scrimmage. The Mt. Vernon offense attacked quickly on an 80-yard touchdown pass from Meyer. The point-after attempt was blocked by the Tigers and gave them some life.
That life was quickly diminished after more flags were thrown against the Tigers stalling out another drive. There were four flags thrown on one play, three against the Tigers and one unsportsmanlike against the Marauders.
Mt. Vernon was forced to punt and shifted the momentum one final time in favor of the Tigers. Yorktown got the energy they needed at the right time and punched in a rushing touchdown to re-take the lead from Mt. Vernon.
Yorktown took the lead and never looked back. The single score in the 4th quarter was all the Tigers needed to take control of the momentum for the rest of the game.
“I've said it many times, this is a big momentum team,” Wilhelm said. “We are a really good team when we make plays on offense and defense. When we don't, we lose that attitude, that football attitude and our team knows this. That's why this week was such a huge week for us in terms of really treating this game like it was our first tournament game.”
After scoring early in the fourth, the Tigers’ defense stood strong again, allowing their offense to run down the remaining eight minutes. Like Wilhelm said, this Yorktown team is one of momentum, and he hopes his squad can carry this momentum into the postseason.
“This was a big win for our team,” he said. “Hopefully that gives us some momentum and gets us going into Richmond next week.”
Yorktown will take a winning record, and a 3rd place finish in the Hoosier Heritage Conference, into their Sectional opener at Richmond next Friday, Oct. 25th. The Tigers and Red Devils are set to kick off at 7 p.m.
Contact Logan Connor via email at logan.connor@bsu.edu or via X @_loganconnor.
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