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By PAUL BEITLER
Sports Editor
KNIGHTSTOWN — After the Southern Wells Raiders stubbed their toe early Friday night, they came back strong to post a regional victory.
It is their third regional championship overall and second in a row.
Now, the Class A No. 8 Raiders (11-2) will head on to semi-state to face the Lafayette Central Catholic Knights (13-0) on at Carnes Field.
The Raiders recovered from a 70-yard touchdown pass on the third play of the game and went on to eliminate Knightstown in a 41-14 rout.
Southern Wells was led by senior halfback Jacob Miller, who ran for two touchdowns and caught a pass for another. He also played linebacker on a defense that held the Panthers to 51 yards rushing.
Last week at Southwood, the Raiders also had a bad start and recovered. Miller and his teammates did not want to make more of the same errors. They shook off the opening play against the Panthers (9-4) and held them scoreless until the very end of the third quarter.
“The difference between this week and last week was that we came out and eliminated all the dumb mistakes that we made last week,” said Miller. “We kept ahold of the ball and we didn’t have near as many penalties. We just played a lot more smarter game this week.”
The Raiders knew that they could not take the Panthers lightly, even though they had lost their best player in junior fullback Lane Fields to a concussion on Monday.
“We knew this was a good team and we were not going to doubt them for one minute,” said Miller.
The Raiders also knew that the Panthers liked to run the same offense and that helped them prepare for their deception in the triple option.
“It helped out a lot. Some teams struggle to find out who has the ball, but every day in practice we spend 20 minutes just doing that and it’s just regular for us. It all came natural,” Miller added.
Miller did all of his scoring in just over one half of action, as the Raiders jumped out to a 41-7 lead just after halftime. Then, he and the other starters took a break.
“I thought we did a really nice job,” said Southern Wells coach Mark Lefebvre. “I love the way they responded. We gave up the touchdown to go down (7-0) and we never batted an eye. We kept playing and went down and scored and kept plugging away on defense.’’
The Raiders tied the score at 7:20 of the first quarter on a two-yard run by Miller and went ahead for good on Miller’s eight-yard run at the 2:18 mark.
On defense, junior cornerback Luke Roush picked off a Hall pass in the second quarter which led to a nine-yard touchdown run by Kyle Jones.
Jones was the hero again a minute later, returning a punt 80 yards for a touchdown.
“I really thought that the punt return was great,” said Lefebvre. “We worked on that hard this week. They did a great job of setting up the wall and Jonesy broke one tackle and we had two or three guys peel back on great blocks.”
Then, after the ensuing kickoff, Roush picked off Hall again for his sixth interception of the season. He ran it back 27 yards to set up another score before halftime.
Fullback Tyler Roush dove over the line for the one-yard score with 21 seconds left.
Following halftime, the Raiders took the kickoff and finished off the Panthers, as Drew Penrod and Miller connected for a 51-yard touchdown pass.
The Panthers, who were limited running the ball, went to the air with junior Nolan Hall passing for 192 yards on 11 completions. He hit Travis Titus for 151 yards and two touchdowns.
“They threw the ball a lot more than we worked on in practice. I’m sure that had to do with their injury and those kind of things. I’m proud of the way our kids adjusted as the game went,” said Lefebvre.
Despite swallowing a bitter pill, Panthers’ coach Bob Prescott was proud of his team.
“I think all our kids understood what they were up against, but they didn’t hang their heads all week. They battled as hard as they could and they did everything we asked,” said Prescott.
“Southern Wells has a great team. I wish them the best of luck,” he added.
For the Raiders, it’s been a great two-year run, especially this year when they had to reload.
“That’s a testament to the kids. They work and work and work. We had to replace eight guys on both sides of the ball and those guys have put in the work all the way until it became their turn and they stepped in and have done a heck of a job,” said Lefebvre.
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