MUNCIE — Travis Nolting believes his Greenfield-Central football team is so close to being on the right side of some games.
They’re just missing a few ingredients for that winning recipe.
On Friday night against Hoosier Heritage Conference rival Delta, the Cougars’ formula for success once again lacked a few elements as they fell to the Eagles 22-16. Though they continued to put themselves in positions to win — including two goal-line stands — there just wasn’t enough in the tank to cross the finish line.
Still, Nolting was impressed, and has been impressed all season with the way his team played against the No. 11 team in Class 4A.
“The improvements they’ve made have been exponential,” Notling said. “We have been in every game we’ve played this year; we’ve been close several times like we were again tonight, but we’ve got to keep grinding and taking steps forward.”
Considering the Cougars are battling against some of the state’s best with such a young team that gives Nolting even more hope for the future of the program.
But, for now, the focus is still on 2020 and what it’s going to take to turn some of these close losses into close victories.
For starters, they’re going to need take advantage of great field position.
Early in the second quarter, junior receiver RaShawn Street ripped off a 70-yard kickoff return to put the Cougars at the Delta 20-yard line. The Cougars’ response for his efforts? They gained a net of negative 6 yards over the next four plays.
Late in the third quarter, after picking up a crucial first down on fourth-and-1, the Cougars gained 3 yards on the ground and missed a 35-yard field goal.
In spite of all of this, they were still just a touchdown and an extra point away from solving the Delta problem and winning their first game ever against the Eagles.
“It’s going to take some time,” Nolting said on consistently winning games. “We’re coming out every week and battling, and eventually we’re going to get there.
“What impresses me the most about this group is we don’t give up; we keep fighting and we continue to play.”
Though the offense came close to getting that elusive win over Delta, all credit goes to the defense for keeping the Cougars in the contest.
For the fourth consecutive game, Nolting’s defenders held an opponent to fewer than 35 points, but that almost wasn’t the case save for two goal-line stands.
The first repel came at the tail end of the first half with the Eagles leading 14-8.
Delta, holding onto the ball for all but one minute in the second quarter, used 18 plays to get to the Greenfield-Central 1-yard line. Twice the Eagles tried to punch the ball in to give themselves a little more cushion and both times they were pushed away by the Cougar’s stingy defense.
Greenfield-Central’s defense came up even bigger with less than two minutes to go in the game, turning away Delta’s Brady Hunt on the quarterback keeper from the 3-yard line and then sniffing out the end around from Luke Belangee, who tried to sprint to pylon from a yard away.
“This is the third week in a row the defense has come up big in key situations,” Nolting said. “Offensively, we had some miscues at times … but the defense has been good and we’re going to keep building off of it.”
The loss drops the Cougars to 0-29 all-time against Delta, the one program they’ve yet to overcome in the HHC.
The Cougars wrap up their 2020 regular season campaign next Friday at home against New Castle.
Greenfield-Central hasn’t topped the Trojans since 2016, but own the all-time series, dating back to 1997, 16-7.
It’s the only HHC matchup where the Cougars have more wins than losses.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Scoreline” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Delta 22, Greenfield-Central 16
GC (2-4, 2-4 HHC);8;0;0;8;-;16
D (6-1, 5-1 HHC);7;7;8;0;-;22
Scoring Summary
1st Quarter
D – Trevor Edgerton 16 yd pass from Brady Hunt (Zion Griffis kick), 8:08
GC – Andrews Zellers 30 yd run (Brady Durnell run), 3:53
2nd Quarter
D – Edgerton 10 yd pass from Hunt (Griffis kick), 9:17
3rd Quarter
D – Edgerton 24 yd pass from Hunt (Abram Stitt run), 5:00
4th Quarter
GC – Zellers 24 yd run (Brayden Herrell run), 8:02
[sc:pullout-text-end]
