GREENFIELD — Banged up, bruised and beaten.
Greenfield-Central’s football team lost consecutive games for the first time since 2022 with a 21-7 loss to visiting Yorktown (5-2, 3-2) Friday.
The last back-to-back losses came against the same two teams that delivered the blows this season — New Palestine and Yorktown.
Playing without three starters — running back/linebacker Cooper Hinton, fullback Braylen Benavente [both injured last week at New Palestine] and linebacker Eddie Mullins, the Class 4A seventh-ranked Cougars were still able to get out to an early 7-0 lead, but Yorktown was able to run the ball successfully against the short-handed defense and the Cougars hurt themselves on offense with fumbles and interceptions.
“I told the kids before the game, we’ve got guys out and somebody has to step up and make big plays and we didn’t do that,” Greenfield-Central head coach Travis Nolting said. “They ran over us the whole game. The defense came up with some stops, which was good, but we had the penalty on the punt where we hit the punter … and then the offense put the defense in bad spots with turnovers.”
Greenfield-Central (5-2, 3-2) fumbled on its first possession, while Yorktown missed a 41-yard field goal on its first series. The Cougars responded with a 10-play, 80-yard drive, the final 31 yards came on a pair of pass plays from quarterback Dallas Freeman to favorite target Boston Willard, the latter went for 22 yards and a score.
A roughing the punter penalty on a fourth-down and 16 from the Greenfield 43 set the Tigers up in prime position to tie the game.
It took just two plays for Yorktown to travel 28 yards. Both were runs from running back Wilson Webster, who scored on an 18-yard jaunt with 8:08 left in the half to tie the game, 7-7.
The Cougars were intercepted on their next drive and punted on their final drive of the first half. Yorktown had a punt and had a chance to score late, but kicker Drake Ford missed his second field goal attempt of the half to leave the game deadlocked 7-7 at the break.
The second half was about ball control, which usually goes hand-in-hand with Greenfield-Central’s Wishbone offense, but it was Yorktown that was knocking off yardage through a strong running attack.
On the first series of the second half, Yorktown used 9:10 off the clock to go 79 yards for the go-ahead score. After 17 running plays, Noah Long scored on a 1-yard run. A bad snap on the PAT left it at 13-7 in favor of the Tigers.
G-C backup running back Trenton Smith knocked off a long run on the next series to get inside the Yorktown 20, but the Cougars lost a fumble on the next play.
That’s the break the Tigers needed to work their way downfield with another time-consuming drive that led to a two-score lead.
The drive took 6:04 off the clock and also went 79 yards. After 12 running plays and an incomplete pass, Long scored on a 2-yard run. Ephraim Daugherty ran in the two-point conversion for a 21-7 lead with 7:14 left in the game.
The next Cougar series got to the Yorktown 29, but was ended on the second of three Freeman interceptions. The Cougars got the ball back one more time, but Yorktown defensive back Kaden Crumes was able to grab his second interception of the night.
“It’s a big win for us, no doubt about it, to beat a ranked 4A team in our sectional,” Yorktown coach Mike Wilhelm said. “We challenged our guys. We’ve been inconsistent. We win a game, play the way we need to play, and then come back and play a game like we did against New Castle [a 27-13 Week 5 loss] and not really play real football. That was our challenge to them and they delivered.”
Along with being without Hinton, Benavente and Mullins, the Cougars lost standout Division I recruit Payton Foley, a starting running back/linebacker to an injury in the second half.
“With stuff like that you have to rise through adverse conditions, and we did not do that,” Nolting said.
“We haven’t played very well on offense the last two weeks,” the coach added.
The Cougars, going into Week 6, were averaging 41 points per game. They were shut out last week by No. 1 New Palestine prior to Friday’s loss to Yorktown.
“We have to make some changes and do something,” Nolting said. “We had to play some young guys. They played hard. [Sophomores] Trenton Smith and Brody Willard had to play both ways, a much larger role they had to take on. We have to play better offensively. We turned the ball over too many times. We gave them a lot of gifts.”
Webster and Long did most of the Tigers work on the ground. Unofficially, Webster ran for 167 yards on 25 carries. Long had 78 yards on 17 tries.
“We’re starting to come into our own up there,” Wilhelm said. “We’re playing a lot of sophomores on both sides of the ball and those sophomores are starting to act like juniors. This team is starting to come together and we needed that. We need to be able to run the ball. It makes us more efficient and we’re all about efficiency. It was a very efficient night for the Yorktown offense.”
For Greenfield-Central, Trenton Smith had seven carries for 66 yards and 14 tackles on defense. Freeman had six carries for 58 yards, but a rough night passing, completing 5-for-20 with three interceptions and 78 yards. Willard was the top receiver with four catches for 63.
Senior defensive back Kody Smith had 21 tackles. Defensive lineman Jacob VanOsdol had 13 and Foley recorded 12.
“We had opportunities in this game to win, we just gave too many gifts,” Nolting added. “When you give people gifts it typically doesn’t work out in your favor.”
Greenfield-Central travels to Delta (4-3, 2-3) next Friday for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
–
Yorktown 21, Greenfield-Central 7
Yorktown (5-2, 3-2);0;7;6;8-;21
Greenfield-Central (5-2, 3-2);7;0;0;0;-;7
Scoring Summary
1st Quarter
GC – Boston Willard 22 pass from Dallas Freeman (Andrew Trabel kick), 3:24
2nd Quarter
Y – Wilson Webster 18 run (Drake Ford kick), 8:08
3rd Quarter
Y – Noah Long 1 run (PAT failed), 2:50
4th Quarter
Y – Long 2 run (Ephraim Daugherty run), 7:14
