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By PAUL BEITLER
Sports Editor
A squad of Raiders gave their school and their community all they had on the football field Friday night, but it was not enough to beat the top-ranked Class A team in the state.
“They played their hearts out tonight, but we just played a better team,” said Southern Wells head coach Mark Lefebvre, after the No. 8 Raiders lost 47-13 to Lafayette Central Catholic at Carnes Field in semi-state action.
The Knights (14-0) will now go up against Fountain Central (14-0) next Friday afternoon in the state finals.
Eleven Raider seniors worked hard over the off-season to lead Southern Wells (11-3) back to the semi-state after losing last year to Sheridan.
Most area fans never thought that the Raiders would make it to this level, but the Raider seniors believed in themselves and did it.
“We’re going to miss a lot of leadership and a lot of character,” said Lefebvre about the seniors. “These guys have really stepped up this year and did a nice job improving. For them to bring us to this point once again, I’m pretty proud of them.”
The Raiders were up against an offensive machine that they had not seen before.
Knights’ senior quarterback Chris Mills completed 19 of 29 passes for 302 yards and five touchdowns.
Central Catholic also rushed for 111 yards, but the damage was done through the air.
“We had to go get the quarterback and we weren’t able to get there. We got there a few times but not enough,” said Lefebvre. “He’s by far the best we’ve seen throwing the ball. This is a pretty small slice of the world here.”
Mills threw two touchdown passes to Marc Withers, one to Joe Naville, Cody Christopher and Danny Antrhop. Naville also scored one rushing touchdown.
The Raiders held the potent Knights to one touchdown in the first quarter — a 20-yard screen pass to Naville.
Southern Wells came back and was moving the ball until Kyle Jones fumbled on a good run and the Knights answered with a scoring drive, as Naville scored on a three-yard run.
“Actually defensively in the first half, we really did not play that poorly. We made a couple mistakes and they capitalized on them. In space, they were just more athletic than us and we had real trouble dealing with that,” said Lefebvre.
“Against a team like this you can’t give them any help. You can’t make any mistakes. Your margin for error is slim to none. We made some mistakes tonight, but I’m not sure that even if we played perfect that we’d win. They’re better than us on most nights,” he added.
The Knights scored again on a 35-yard pass play to Withers to go ahead 21-0.
Then, the Raiders did something no other team had done against the Knights this season. They scored a rushing touchdown against them.
After a 22-yard pass from Drew Penrod to Jacob Miller, Tyler Roush broke away for a 52-yard touchdown run with 6:37 to go in the first half.
The Knights replied with a 35-yard TD play to Christopher for a 28-6 halftime lead.
They tacked on 13 more points in the third period. It looked like Penrod had intercepted Mills in the end zone to stop the Knights, but the Raiders were called for roughing the passer.
Two plays later, Mills hit Anthrop with a 22-yard TD strike.
The Knights struck quickly after stopping the next Raider possession and scored on a 43-yard pass to Withers.
In the last period, back-up quarterback Austin Munn added a one-yard touchdown to end the Knights’ scoring.
The Raiders answered that with a scoring drive and Penrod finalized the action with a 20-yard pass to senior tight end Trevor Bower.
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Class A
Semi-State Championship
LAFAYETTE CENTRAL CATHOLIC 47
SOUTHERN WELLS 13
At Carnes Field
Score By Quarters
Laf. Cent. Catholic 7 21 13 6 – 47
Southern Wells 0 6 0 7 – 13
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
LCC--Joe Naville 20 pass from Chris Mills (Niall Noonan kick), 5:48.
Second Quarter
LCC--Naville 3 run (Noonan kick), 10:48.
LCC--Marc Withers 35 pass from Mills (Noonan kick), 8:02.
SW--Tyler Roush 52 run (Kick failed), 6:37.
LCC--Cody Christopher 35 pass from Mills (Noonan kick), 4:44.
Third Quarter
LCC--Danny Anthrop 22 pass from Mills (Noonan kick), 7:41.
LCC--Withers 43 pass from Mills (Kick failed), 5:16.
Fourth Quarter
LCC--Austin Munn 1 run (Kick failed), 3:45.
SW--Trevor Bower 20 pass from Drew Penrod (Connor Stoffel kick), 0:23.7.
Team Statistics
LCC SW
First Downs 12 8
Rushes-Yards 25-111 39-191
Yards Passing 302 71
Passing (Comp-Att-Int) 19-29-0 4-14-0
Penalties-Yards 6-55 4-45
Fumbles-Lost 0-0 3-1
Punts-Average 2-39.0 5-27.2
Time of Possession 22:44 25:16
Individual Statistics
Rushing: Lafayette Cent. Catholic, Cody Christopher 6-42, Brad Schrader 5-62, Joe Naville 7-14, Chris Mills 3-minus 2, Danny Anthrop 2-minus 6, Austin Munn 1-1, Marc Withers 1-minus 1. Southern Wells, Tyler Roush 12-84, Jacob Miller 12-34, Kyle Jones 6-36, Drew Penrod 7-24, Jordan Caldwell 2-13.
Passing: Lafayette Cent. Catholic, Mills 19-29-0-302-5. Southern Wells, Penrod 4-13-0-71-1, Miller 0-1-0.
Receiving: Lafayette Cent. Catholic, Christopher 5-80, Naville 4-21, Withers 3-82, Connor Mackey 3-39, Adam Zimmerman 2-49, Anthrop 2-31. Southern Wells, Luke Roush 2-29, Miller 1-22, Trevor Bower 1-20.
Missed Field Goals: Lafayette Cent. Catholic.
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