GREENFIELD — The first season of the new-look Greenfield-Central Cougars football program came to an end Friday.
The Cougars, under first-year head coach Travis Nolting, who brought in the unique wishbone offense and injected the struggling program with some enthusiasm and a plan for the future, lost to Pendleton Heights 42-7 in a Class 4A Sectional 21 semifinal game at Clayton Myers Field.
Greenfield-Central finished the season with a 2-9 record, but left the field named after the late coach who led the Cougars to their only state championship in 1973 with a mindset that it wasn’t the end of the season, but just the beginning of great things to come.
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“The camaraderie, the whole team bonded really well this year. Last year and the years before, it was nothing like this,” senior fullback/linebacker Bradon Nelson said.
Nelson was among the many players, coaches and program supporters emotional at the finalizing of the 2019 season, but also among the mass that see a very bright future.
“They’re going to keep striving and going up and you can see it,” Nelson added. “We never stopped fighting to the end.”
On Sept. 21, the Cougars beat Shelbyville 67-0 to end a losing streak that had reached 17 games. It was Greenfield-Central’s first win since Sept. 29, 2017. They topped that last week with a 40-39 first-round playoff victory over Muncie Central. It was the Cougars first tournament win since 2016, a 41-21 victory over Jay County.
Nelson was one of just a handful of seniors. Nolting’s first team was low on experience. At one time on Friday, three freshmen were in the offensive backfield with quarterback Brodie Mayberry and running backs Brayden Herrell and Andrew Zellers.
“I think we accomplished a lot more than people thought,” Nolting said. “I knew the expectations were not very high with what the community expected and probably a lot of people around here, but what I will say about our kids is, they fight and they fight for 48 minutes.
“These younger players that we have that are in key roles for us, this is only going to make them better as the future roles in here.”
Everyone got a quick glimpse of a promising future early.
Three plays into the game Herrell sprinted for a 63-yard gain. Two plays later, he put the Cougars ahead with a 3-yard touchdown run. Ben Polster’s PAT gave G-C a 7-0 lead with 9:38 remaining in the first quarter.
The lead was short-lived. A veteran Pendleton Heights team tied things up quickly. Senior Joe Rios scored on an 11-yard run with 7:08 left in the first. The Arabians took the lead for good on a 4-yard touchdown run by senior quarterback Kirby Hess with 3:40 left in the opening quarter.
Pendleton Heights broke it open in the second half. Up 21-7, Clay Britt, another senior, took the opening kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown. Britt blocked a punt on the next Cougars’ series to give the Arabians the ball at the Greenfield-Central 10. Two plays later, senior running back Kamden Earley scored on a 10-yard run, extending the visitors lead to 35-7 with 9:44 remaining in the third quarter.
“Coach (Nolting) is doing a good job. You can see that,” Pendleton Heights coach Jed Richman said. “They’ve gotten better the last part of the season. They’re young and they came and executed well against us. We didn’t execute defensively very well and they took advantage of it. You have to give them credit.
“Once we settled down and kind of took over I thought we played pretty well in all three phases. Take away the interception, it was a pretty good game (for us).”
Pendleton Heights (7-4) will travel to Mt. Vernon for the sectional championship game next Friday. Mt. Vernon beat the Arabians in Fortville in the regular season, on Sept. 27, 18-14.
Greenfield-Central senior Tyler Antic had the Cougars’ interception.
“Everybody has bought in to every single day,” Antic said of his final season with the Cougars.
“I can’t say enough about our senior class,” Nolting said. “We had a very small senior class, but those guys were committed and did everything we asked of them all year. I’m super proud of them.
“I’m looking forward to continue to build things with the coaching staff we have, returning players we have and the incoming players we’re getting from the eighth grade. .. Our off-season starts Dec. 2. We’re going to keep working and keep building and doing things they probably haven’t done here in a while.”
