Late rally propels CC past WL in battle of No. 1 teams
Written by
NATHAN BAIRD
When Travis Smith's heroic moment arrived, it felt nothing like what the Central Catholic senior had imagined."I really cannot feel anything in my body right now," Smith said. "It's very intense. I'm so tired. It's been such a long game."Friday's taut, raucous Hoosier Conference championship game between Class A No. 1 Central Catholic and Class 3A No. 1 West Lafayette might have been even longer if not for Smith.The safety's leaping interception and 55-yard return for touchdown in the final 30 seconds lifted Central Catholic to a 21-14 comeback victory in front of an estimated crowd of 4,000 at LaRocca Field."I wasn't really sure if he was going to take it back at first," said fellow CC senior Danny Anthrop, whose own fourth-quarter interception set up the game-tying touchdown. "And then I saw him get this speed out of nowhere. I don't know how he did it. That's probably the fastest I've seen that kid run in his life."Central Catholic (9-0, 6-0 Hoosier Conference) trailed 14-0 entering the fourth quarter and 14-7 with less than six minutes to play. It appeared the Knights' 38-game winning streak, the third-longest streak in state history, might come to an end.But Knights senior and Purdue recruit Danny Anthrop's interception set up his second touchdown run, which tied the game with 2:56 to play.
West Lafayette (8-1, 5-1) drove to midfield, but Smith's interception -- the third thrown by Sean Busch and the Red Devils' fifth turnover -- completed the startling comeback."We will definitely use this as motivation as a team and me personally," said Busch, who guided a 74-yard touchdown drive to open the game, capped by a 10-yard touchdown pass to Brian Bangs."We'll come out harder than we would have for sure. We're just happy we've still got games to play."As in its 17-7 victory over Tipton on Sept. 16, West Side could not sustain its early offensive success. But the Red Devils defense became the first to contain and Anthrop and kept CC off the scoreboard into the third quarter.
In the final two minutes of the third, Tyler Beyer blocked Munn's punt, and Ben Thomas picked it up and ran 24 yards for a touchdown that made it 14-0 West Lafayette."I saw two CC guys fall over and everyone was on the ground with no one near me," Thomas said. "We always practice scooping and scoring. I just scooped it and scored it."Munn, who had completed 67 percent of his passes coming in, connected on 6 of 16 before the punt block. But the Knights' offense began to click as he led a 64-yard touchdown drive, capped by Anthrop's 4-yard run.Anthrop's interception and return to the West Lafayette 10 with five minutes left led to his fourth-and-goal plunge from 1 yard out. With 2:56 to play, the game was tied 14-14."For me the momentum shifted after that first score," CC senior linebacker/receiver Matt Burks said. "After that, things started rolling, things started clicking and we started realizing, hey, we're still in this game.
We can win this."Amen Galley's legs carried West Lafayette from its own 36 to the CC 49. When Busch tried to go to Galley through the air, Smith read the play and pounced."I was just hoping I could get down the field a little bit and make sure the offense could score," said Smith, who also intercepted a pass in the first half. "No way I thought I was going to score."After two incompletions, Busch completed a pass underneath to Galley, which set off a series of laterals. But soon the Red Devils were only going backward until Busch was finally taken down.Anthrop, who came into the game averaging 17.5 yards per offensive touch, carried 16 times for 56 yards and added 42 on three receptions.Despite a stellar defensive game, West Lafayette managed just one first down in the second half. After piling up 159 yards on its first three possessions, the Red Devils totaled 44 yards the rest of the game."We couldn't get yards on first and second down, leaving us with third and long," said Busch, who finished 6 of 17 for 84 yards. "You can't build a drive like that, so we just never got a drive going. Turnovers killed us. I had four of them.
That's all I need to say."Players from both sides agreed the first meeting between the county rivals since 2000 -- and the first meeting between two top-ranked Tippecanoe County teams -- lived up to the hype.In its first season back in the Hoosier Conference since 1994, Central Catholic ran the table."Once they blocked that punt, people were starting to second-guess themselves," Munn said. "Our motto is, 'Next play.' Every game we come out and show them what CC pride is. We never stopped."
