FORTVILLE —Mt. Vernon’s defense has spent an entire season creating turnovers and negative plays, turning them into positives for a Marauder team that was an unbeaten two-time sectional champion heading into Friday night’s regional clash with Indianapolis Roncalli.
The Marauders weren’t able to frequent the Roncalli backfield on Friday, falling to the visitors 35-14 in a rematch of last year’s Class 4A regional won by the Marauders.
Mt. Vernon had 111 tackles for loss (9.25 per game), 50.5 sacks (4.2 per game) and 14 interceptions (1.2 per game) through 12 games, but it was unable to pressure Roncalli quarterback Aidan Leffler, who didn’t throw much but had two of his four pass completions go for touchdowns.
Leffler was only 4-of-10 for 121 yards. Along with the two completions for touchdowns, he had a big 29-yard pass play to Cole Beckman to get his offense breathing room after starting the game’s initial scoring series from its own 12. Three plays later, Kyle Lockard scored on a 54-yard lateral to give Roncalli a 7-0 lead.
They went up 14-0 on a 3-yard touchdown strike to Beckman and 21-0 on the game’s biggest play, a 75-yard touchdown strike to Lockard.
“They were getting the ball out super fast. We were trying to get back there, but they have an amazing offensive line that was blocking super well,” Mt. Vernon senior defensive lineman Mekhi Richmond said. “We were trying, but (their offensive line was) working real hard, too.”
Richmond came in as the team leader in both tackles for loss (19.5) and sacks (10.5).
“They’re really a run-based team, too. They weren’t passing the ball much and we’re a pass-rush defense,” Richmond added. “It was a little harder to get to (Leffler) and get pressure.”
With a two-score lead (21-7) to start the second half, Roncalli put the rest of the game on its strong running attack with Leffler and running back Baron Huebler, who both finished with over 100 rushing yards. Each had a touchdown, too.
Roncalli did not attempt a pass the entire second half. It went 80 yards in 14 plays, taking 5:58 off the clock in the first series of the second half.
“We knew we had to throw the football because the way they play defense. They pack the box with one extra guy you can’t block,” Roncalli first-year head coach John Rodenberg said, “We knew we had to throw the football and we had success hitting the deep ball. The percentages aren’t always good on hitting the deep ball, but we hit it in the first half. It enabled us to grind them down a little bit in the second half.”
Mt. Vernon didn’t record a sack the entire game. Marauder sophomore defensive back Jalen Thomeson intercepted Leffler in the second quarter, but Mt. Vernon was unable to turn it into points. Not until two minutes left in the game did the defense record a play that went for negative yardage.
“We worked a whole lot on Cover Zero (man-to-man defense) and them packing the box. Our offensive staff did a fantastic job preparing for these guys. They run an unorthodox defense with so much pressure. We protected it well,” Rodenberg added.
Along with the game plan noted by Rodenberg, Mt. Vernon senior defensive back Rylan Cole said the Marauders missed a few opportunities to slow down the Roncalli offense.
“We missed some assignments and they were a lot bigger than us,” Cole said. “I felt like we came in with a great game plan, we just missed a couple key assignments. We let up a couple of big plays that really just changed the game around.”
