GREENWOOD — The Mt. Vernon football team couldn’t slow down a powerful Greenwood wave on both sides of the ball Friday night.
“We talked about being physical because we knew they were going to be physical, and they got after it early and they were the more physical team,” Mt. Vernon coach Neil Kazmierczak said.
The Woodmen used a punishing running attack to take a 22-0 lead in the first quarter en route to a 50-6 victory against Mt. Vernon on Friday night in the Class 4A Sectional 22 semifinals.
Greenwood (9-2) will play at Mooresville (3-8) in the final next Friday night.
Defensively, the Woodmen kept the Marauders, who finished 4-7, scoreless until late in the third quarter. Mt. Vernon scored on a 14-yard touchdown pass from second-string quarterback Austin Finke to Adam Lackey with 56 seconds left in the period. The conversion run failed.
“I’m surprised because we had some really good practices offensively the last couple of weeks,” Kazmierczak said. “They did a good job of holding us down offensively. We couldn’t get it going.”
Greenwood senior quarterback Seth Gallman ran for 120 yards to lead the Woodmen attack.
“He is our lifeblood,” Campbell said. “He’s a great kid. He’s a hard worker. He’s our leader. Unequivocally, he’s the heart of our machine. Glad we got him and we’re going to get to play with him for at least one more week.”
Greenwood junior running back Nick Willham rushed for 85 yards on nine caries with three touchdowns and senior running back Brandon Rosado added 77 yards and two touchdowns.
“We talked about again getting fast start, being physical and educating our game plan,” Greenwood coach Mike Campbell said. “Offensively and defensively I felt we did that.”
The Woodmen dominated from the start, with Willham scoring two touchdowns in the first quarter on runs of 6 and 4 yards, followed by two 2-point conversion runs. Anthony Williams powered in from 1 yard for a touchdown to put Greenwood ahead 22-0 late in first quarter.
Greenwood pushed the lead to 36-0 by halftime with 1-yard touchdown runs by Oliver Rau and Rosado.
Rosado added a 5-yard touchdown run and Willham a 2-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to boost the lead to the lead to 50-0. From there, Greenwood subbed heavily.
