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Knights crush Indian Creek to clinch conference championship
A little more than one year ago, Northview’s football team suffered one of the most heartbreaking losses in a long time when Indian Creek made a pivotal defensive stop and then drove down the field in the rain and drilled a game-winning field goal as time expired to become Western Indiana Conference champions.
The Knights, showing their ability to take a punch and then get back up, responded by giving Brebeuf everything it could handle – and was only one pass away from pulling off the upset – in the opening round of sectional play the following week.
But the gut-wrenching loss to the Braves didn’t go away.
It fueled Northview throughout the offseason and into the fall, leading to their chance to get back on top of the conference on Friday night with Indian Creek in town for a repeat matchup for the crown.
This time, Northview didn’t have to put its defense back onto the field with little time left on the clock and hope it could keep the Braves from getting into field goal range. No, this time, the Knights took matters into their own hands, and in doing so, handed Indian Creek a 48-7 loss to become outright WIC champions for the first time since 2020.
“That [loss] was definitely brought up this week, several times,” said Raetz. “Last year’s loss was tough, but that’s football. You deal with some pretty high highs and some really low lows. That was a low, but our kids responded by playing their hearts out in the sectional. Tonight was a different story. We were on the other side of it. Our kids executed really well and now we’re conference champs.”
It didn’t take long for the Knights to put their stamp on the game as DeMarius McLawyer ran out onto the field for the opening kickoff. The 5-foot-5 sparkplug mishandled the hopping ball but eventually corralled it at the five-yard line. He then weaved his way through the oncoming traffic before finding a hole that he burst through, leading to a 95-yard touchdown return that brought the Northview faithful to their feet.
“It’s big any time you can start the game with a kickoff return for a touchdown. It gave us all kinds of momentum,” said Raetz. “Honestly, he bobbled the ball, so I really wasn’t sure that was [going to happen], but that’s what DeMarius can do. He can break long plays like that. That’s his second of the year and he’s only been back there for the last three games. It was a big momentum shift.”
The kick return set the tone for what was a dominating performance by the Knights in all facets of the game, but especially in the first quarter which saw the hosts jump out to a 21-point lead and forced Indian Creek out of its typical ground-and-pound offensive game plan.
“Our kids came ready to play,” Raetz said. “I thought they did a really good job this week, especially with it being fall break. It would have been very easy to get distracted, but our kids showed up every day and worked hard and stayed focused. That led to us executing the game plan again.”
Northview’s offense, after being stifled against Cascade in Week 7, continued to get back into its typical groove, scoring in all eight drives that didn’t involve intentionally running out the clock at the end of the halves. Quarterback Colton Bath threw for 147 yards and two touchdowns – one to Avery Perry and one to Gibson Schimmel – and ran for 41 yards and two touchdowns while Slade Fell ran for 128 yards and one touchdown. Luke Whitman also contributed by knocking in a pair of field goals for 25- and 27-yards out, respectively.
The defense was stingy once again as well.
Indian Creek entered the night averaging 28.6 points per game. But on Friday, the Braves were held to seven points on 136 total yards of total offense while turning it over – all coming on interceptions – three times.
“Our defense played outstanding. We did a good job of executing the game plan and reading their keys. We tackled much better too,” said Raetz. “We had one busted coverage [on the 29-yard touchdown pass], but other than that, I thought all around, we played good, team defense.”
After congratulating the team for accomplishing the first goal on their to-do list, Raetz’s message to the group was simple – the work doesn’t stop. Northview (8-1) will now turn its attention to its sectional-opening opponent in Roncalli (4-4). Raetz said he and his coaching staff haven’t looked at too much film on Royals yet, noting their entire focus has been on Indian Creek over the last week, but expects to see a typical Roncalli team when they arrive at Bob Tully Field on Friday night.
“We’ve watched a little bit of film on them – not a ton – but they’re going to be the typical Roncalli. They’ve got a lot of kids and they’re going to play physical football. We’re definitely going to have to bring our A-game,” said Raetz.”
Northview 48, Indian Creek 7
Indian Creek 0 7 0 0 — 7
Northview 21 14 3 10 — 48
Nv — McLawyer 95 kick return (Whitman kick), 11:47 1Q
Nv — Perry 45 pass from Bath (Whitman kick), 6:27 1Q
Nv — Bath 1 run (Whitman kick), :58.7 1Q
Nv — G.Schimmel 28 pass from Bath (Whitman kick), 8:38 2Q
IC — Ramey 29 pass from Clark (Long kick), 6:53 2Q
Nv — Bath 40 run (Whitman kick), 4:56 2Q
Nv — Whitman 27 kick, 6:33 3Q
Nv — Whitman 25 kick, 11:52 4Q
Nv — Fell 9 run (Whitman kick), 8:59 4Q
IC Nv
First downs 8 17
Rushes-yards 23-138 37-268
Passing 59 147
Comp-Att-Int 8-26-3 7-13-0
Return yards 206 125
Punts-avg. 2-27.0 0-0.0
Fumbles-lost 0-0 2-1
Penalties-yards 2-20 2-15
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing — Indian Creek, Mink 25-78, Clark 1-(-1). Northview, Fell 17-128, Bath 2-41, Perry 3-9, McCluskey 4-20, McLawyer 10-67, Stewart 1-3.
Passing — Indian Creek, Clark 8-26-1 59. Northview, Bath 7-13-2 147.
Receiving — Indian Creek, Ramey 2-9, Pappas 1-5, Emberton 3-35, Mink 1-(-1), Lowhorn 1-11. Northview, Perry 5-107, G.Schimmel 2-40.
Next — Northview (8-1) visits Roncalli and Indian Creek (4-5) hosts Edgewood Friday.