By JACOB MOORE, for The Democrat
Brown County fell to the Alices of Vincennes Lincoln High School in the second round of sectional play on Friday. The 42-19 loss concludes the Eagles’ season at 5-6.
Vincennes improved its record to 7-4 on the season. The Alices will play Princeton, who defeated Edgewood Friday, on Nov. 8 in the sectional championship game.
Vincennes struck first with 10:07 remaining in the first quarter when quarterback Eric Vickers found wide receiver Brody Ruggles on a 41-yard touchdown pass. The Alices extended their lead to 14-0 at the 7:29 mark when Vickers found wide receiver Favian Hernandez on a 27-yard strike.
Late in the first quarter, Brown County responded with a promising drive, reaching Vincennes territory. Unfortunately for the Eagles, a single play ended the drive and resulted in points for Vincennes when Hernandez intercepted a deflected pass and returned it 70 yards for a touchdown. Hernandez’s second score of the night put Vincennes up 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Just as the game seemed on the verge of becoming a first half blowout, the Eagle defense stiffened. With 8:44 left in the second quarter, Vincennes faced a fourth down and needed six yards for a first down. The Alices elected not to punt, but the Eagles forced an incomplete pass and reclaimed the ball.
The second quarter remained scoreless until the last three minutes when the teams would trade touchdowns. First, Vickers threw his third touchdown pass of the night, this one a 34-yarder to wide receiver Baron Vieck with 2:44 remaining.
Brown County got its first points of the night on a 12-yard pass from quarterback Noah Carter to wide receiver and fellow senior Nicholas Huls with 44 seconds left in the half. The Eagles went for two, and senior wide receiver Brandon Fleischman initially appeared to score on a reverse that ended with a dive into the end zone, but he was ruled to have stepped out of bounds at the two-yard line.
With the score 28-6 at halftime, the Eagles needed a dominating second half if they were come back to win. While the second half went better for Brown County — the teams would ultimately battle to a draw, with each side scoring two touchdowns — the hill was too steep. Thanks to their strong showing in the first half, Vincennes remained in control.
Both of the Alice scores came in the third quarter. At the 9:07 mark, Vickers found wide receiver Torrence Gillis for a touchdown. With 3:27 left, Vickers would throw his fifth touchdown pass of the night, this time connecting again with Ruggles.
The Eagles answered in the fourth quarter, first with a 22-yard touchdown pass from Carter to Fleishman with 11:20 remaining. Then with 2:15 seconds left in the game, sophomore Wanblee Roux rumbled into the end zone from eight yards out. Senior Caleb Yager’s extra point made the score 42-19 and would prove to be the last score of the season.
“That’s a fine football team,” Head Coach Randy Minniear said of Vincennes after the game. Despite the loss, Minniear was proud of his team, noting Vincennes struggled to run the ball despite a significant size advantage (three Alice offensive linemen checked in at over 300 pounds). “They didn’t come in and punch us in the mouth. They didn’t knock us around and run over us.”
Speaking to the team after the game, Minniear accentuated the positive. First, he praised the senior class: “You guys have changed the culture. You’ve set an example of what we need to do as a program.”
Minniear also noted certain milestones achieved this season “Everyone stepped up. We did things that hadn’t been done here in a long time.”
Among those achievements are the school’s first win in sectional play since 2013 and first three-game winning streak since the 2003 season. Since the 1995 season, when the team went 10-2 and won a sectional title, this was just the fourth time Brown County has won five or more games in a season.
Carter, the senior who has started nearly every game at quarterback the past four seasons, remarked on the cultural change in the program. “My freshman year, guys bickered all the time. Now, it’s like we’re brothers.”
One of the biggest underclassman contributors this season was sophomore running back Kody Walsh. With his eye on the future, he spoke about the departing seniors’ effect on the program. “They set a pretty good bar for us to keep the improvement going.”
