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Whitman's game-winning field goal lifts Knights past Terre Haute South
There were plenty of storylines – Mark Raetz facing the school he led as a quarterback in the mid-1990s and then as head coach in the late-2000s and early-2010s; starting quarterbacks Colton Bath and Brady Wilson, who have known each other since they were toddlers thanks to their fathers coaching alongside each other, battling it out for the first and only time in their high school careers; and the ramifications of Hurricane Helene postponing the game 15 hours – to go around for Saturday morning’s high school football matchup between Class 4A No. 11 Northview and visiting Terre Haute South, but the one that Northview head coach Mark Raetz was most interested in was seeing how his group would fare against what he described as ‘the toughest team we’ll see during the regular season.’
And when they walked off Jerry Anderson Field with a thrilling 31-28 win, Raetz said his team did exactly what the Northview coaching staff asked of them throughout the week of practice – the Knights put together four quarters of strong football and gave themselves a chance in the final minutes.
“Our kids needed to play a fourth quarter, physical, competitive football game,” said Raetz. “We’ve talked with them all week about preparing themselves mentally and emotionally and physically to do that. I’m proud of our kids for responding.”
It was a pair of drives at the end of each half that highlighted Saturday’s victory.
The first came with a couple of minutes left in the second quarter. With Northview leading 14-7 and possessing the ball on its own 12-yard line, Raetz and offensive coordinator Jonathan Bradshaw implemented their two-minute offense, which saw a lot of no huddle plays being called.
Using a mix of the running game (38 yards) and passing attack (39 yards), the hosts got themselves to the 16-yard line with less than 10 seconds left on the clock. Facing a third down, Raetz allowed quarterback Colton Bath one last try to the end zone before bringing the kicking unit onto the field.
Bath made his final throw of the first half count as the junior signal caller hit Gibson Schimmel for a 16-yard touchdown that widened Northview’s lead heading into the locker room.
“That drive was huge. It’s something that we practice. We’re always going over our end of game, end of half situations. We executed it really well,” Raetz said. “Just getting that little cushion there was huge.”
The two-score cushion came into play in the fourth quarter after Bath was intercepted on back-to-back drives, both of which led to touchdown passes from Terre Haute South quarterback Brady Wilson to former Northview wide receiver AJ Suggs, tying the game at 28-28 with 4:00 to go in the game.
Bath felt a sense of responsibility to put his team in a position to win the football game after the pair of turnovers. He put the interceptions off to the side and readied himself to lead a game-ending drive.
“The game wasn’t over yet, so I just had to put those plays in the back of my mind,” said Bath. “I just knew I had to go out there and execute to give ourselves a chance to win.”
But it wasn’t going to come easy; and it didn’t.
Bath faced a pair of do-or-die scenarios – a 3rd and 5 on Northview’s 25-yard line and a 4th and 5 on Terre Haute South’s 40-yard line – during the possession and came through on both by using his legs to move the chains.
“Our first read on those was for me to pass, but after going through my third and fourth reads, I decided to run there. I took off and got the first down on both of them,” Bath explained. “It really worked out.”
After the second run moved the Knights onto the periphery of the red zone, Raetz dialed up a throw to the end zone. Bath lofted the ball near the back line where only go-to wide receiver Avery Perry could come down with it. However, the junior pass catcher never got the chance to do so as he was pulled to the ground by two Brave defenders, forcing the officials to call pass interference.
“We were looking to score there, and if it’s a little bit of a longer throw, it’s probably a touchdown, but it worked out. We got the pass interference and got us to where we needed to be,” Bath said.
The penalty pushed the ball up 15 yards and forced Raetz and his staff to make another critical decision with eight seconds left and no timeouts at their disposal.
Either throw the ball into the end zone or bring kicker Luke Whitman onto the field for a 30-yard field goal attempt.
He went with the latter of the two options.
Whitman lined up to put foot to leather twice but Terre Haute South head coach Tim Herrin called consecutive timeouts in hopes of icing the sophomore.
“I just kept going over where I needed to aim and how I needed to kick it with the wind. That’s all I was thinking about. I knew what I had to do,” recalled Whitman.
The ploy didn’t work though as Whitman, who admitted he never saw where the ball went after he struck it with the inside of his foot, knocked in the 30-yard field goal to give Northview a 31-28 lead it wouldn’t relinquish, moving its record to 6-0.
“When I kicked it, I didn’t really know where it went. I was just looking straight down at the ball, but I heard a lot of yelling and cheering, so I thought it went in,” said Whitman. “That was an amazing feeling.”
“That drive showed a lot of toughness, a lot of grit. They had all of the momentum, but our kids, in that moment, showed what they were made of. They got the ball down the field to put Luke in position to finish it off,” said Raetz. “Luke is a kid that’s very calm and has an easy demeanor but works very hard … He’s one of our best soccer players that puts in extra time to help the football team. That’s something that doesn’t go unnoticed.”
Northview, dealing with a short week, will quickly turn its attention to a formidable Cascade team that runs an entirely different offense than South.
“It’s different from what we just saw. [South] spreads it out. [Cascade] is going to have double backs behind the center. It’s definitely something we’ll have to prepare for, but that’s the cool thing about high school football. Everybody runs different stuff, which is unique. This is just another week of that,” said Raetz.
Northview 31, Terre Haute South 28
TH South 7 0 7 14 — 28
Northview 0 21 7 3 — 31
THS — Corbin 1 run (Runyan kick), 2:31 1Q
Nv — Fell 6 run (Whitman kick), 11:06 2Q
Nv — Fell 10 run (Whitman kick), 2:31 2Q
Nv — G.Schimmel pass from Bath (Whitman kick), :6.5 2Q
THS — Suggs 28 pass from Wilson (Runyan kick), 10:09 3Q
Nv — Perry 9 pass from Bath (Whitman kick), 5:46 3Q
THS — Suggs 25 pass from Wilson (Runyan kick), 5:48 4Q
THS — Suggs 25 pass from Wilson (Runyan kick), 4:00 4Q
Nv — Whitman 30 kick, :7.6 4Q
THS Nv
First downs 12 22
Rushes-yards 18-120 49-320
Passing 211 140
Comp-Att-Int 16-22-1 11-19-2
Return yards 49 24
Punts-avg. 2-36.5 1-38.0
Fumbles-lost 1-1 2-0
Penalties-yards 9-63 8-75
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing — Terre Haute South, Corbin 15-112, Branch-Lewis 1-3, Wilson 1-4, Hoole 1-1. Northview, Fell 20-140, Bath 16-89, McCluskey 1-3, McLawyer 5-22, Perry 7-66.
Passing — Terre Haute South, Wilson 16-22-3 211. Northview, Bath 11-19-1 140.
Receiving — Terre Haute South, Suggs 8-151, Branch-Lewis 4-24, Lewis 2-13, Maxwell 2-23. Northview, Perry 6-55, Raetz 2-33, Fell 1-24, G.Schimmel 2-28.
Next — Northview (6-0) visits Cascade and Terre Haute South (1-4) visits Brebeuf Friday.