Pirates tally 37 unanswered points, sink Tornadoes

It was the ideal start for Columbian Friday night. However, it certainly wasn't the ideal ending.Columbian – who most likely needed a win to get to the playoffs – came out swinging Friday night at Frost-Kalnow Stadium in a SBC Lake title game with Perkins.TC led 7-0 and then 14-6 after one quarter, but then the Pirates got the run game going and the Tornadoes didn't have an answer. Perkins scored 37 straight points to grab a 43-14 victory, giving the Pirates their fourth straight SBC Lake title. "They've been playing some good football was tough sledding in that first quarter, but then when we got the run game going it helps the defense because it gives them a chance to rest, so they went out there and got after their offense," Perkins coach Jalen Santoro said. "Fourth straight league title and a lot of these guys were new starters this year, and we went through some adversity early on, but just hats off to these guys and these seniors for trusting the process. "It wasn't the results we wanted early on, but they stuck with it and kept working."TC (5-5, 3-1 SBC Lake) started well as Logan Gooding hit Johnny Bremyer in stride for a 69-yard touchdown just two minutes into the game.But Perkins (7-3, 4-0) responded right away as Sam Schweinfurth hit Bryce Davie for an 11 yard TD, but the extra point missed.After a fumble, TC's Masen Seitz plunged into the end zone for a 2-yard score as TC led 14-6 at the end of one."Had a plan with some things that worked well, some things didn't … they made adjustments to stuff. They just made a couple of big plays," TC coach Judd Lutz said. "They hit a couple big runs where we just didn't fit-up and we ended playing a couple young guys, which it is what it is. "They're a really good football team. We knew that coming in. We knew we had to play outstanding. We knew we had to get a couple breaks. I feel like we did get some breaks, but when we needed a couple more to close the gap, we didn't get it done. When we put on the film we're going to kick ourselves because there were opportunities on third downs to get off the field and the same down on offense. This sucks … because this is a really good team. Their head coach is an idiot and schedules really tough games, we couldn't close the gap in a couple games where we needed to to play in the postseason."After TC grabbed the 14-6 lead, Perkins started to hit some big runs as Levi Jackson ran in a 43-yard TD and JoJo Moore added a 73-yard TD to give Perkins a 20-14 halftime advantage. Because the Pirates dominated up front, the run game was working and TC couldn't get the run game going, so the Pirates pinned their ears back and got after Gooding in the second half.Perkins' kicker Grant Hickman drilled a 21-yard field goal, Schweinfurth hit Kaden Legando for a 28-yard TD pass and then Legando picked off Gooding on the next play and took it to the house for a 25-yard score.Moore capped the scoring with a 1-yard TD."Ultimately, they're pretty chaotic on defense, so we were able to run the football," Santoro said. "It's one of those things where they'd guess right sometimes and get you, but then we'd get them other times and we made them pay. "JoJo had some big runs there in the second quarter and so did Levi. We got the score where we wanted it to and then the defense stood up and made some plays."Perkins outrushed the Tornadoes 284-95 and held TC to just 12 first downs. Perkins was great on third down, going 7 of 13, compared to 2 of 12 for the Tornadoes.Moore led Perkins with 15 carries for 174 yards, while Jackson added 19 carries for 113. Schweinfurth was 16 of 22 passing for 198 yards. His main target was Blake Parker with 10 grabs for 118 yards.For TC, Seitz carried the ball 15 times for 63 yards. Gooding was 10 of 35 passing for 146 yards with two picks. Bremyer caught two passes for 85 yards.Coming into the matchup, TC was 14th in Region 10, so if it was the last game of the season the Tornadoes finished 5-5 after a year filled with ups and downs."Small roller coasters with a big roller coaster of a season with ups and downs, but I gotta do a better job as a coach, building consistency, building young men not just for the game of football, but for life," Lutz said. "I don't know how successful this group was until a few years down the road because the mission is building good men."You want to win as many football games along the way, but I gotta do a better job to make sure we can do that."