In the few hours that Blitz spent over the course of this week thinking about the undefeated showdown in Class 1A between South Adams and Southwood, never once did this fuzzy fella think of one particular name – Trey Schoch.
Yet there we were on Friday night, with Southwood quarterback Alex Farr making mincemeat of the Starfires’ cornerbacks on deep throws to his top receivers.
Despite South Adams’ offensive prowess, a deficiency on defense was on track to derail its magical season.
“We should have switched up earlier, but we went to two high safeties with a man underneath to help defend Farr,” said South Adams coach Grant Moser. “We pushed some guys around and changed our coverage, and we were able to slow down Farr, who is a tremendous quarterback.”
Enter Trey Schoch, a player who is not part of South Adams’ normal defensive rotation. His play, on top of the stepping up of the entire defensive unit after some early struggles, vaulted South Adams to a 48-35 victory over the Knights.
“Trey is our fifth receiver on offense, so he didn’t even start the game,” Moser said. “He ends up going in and playing every down on both sides of the ball, saw some snaps at running back and was huge on defense.
“His job all year has been to torch our scout team team as a wide receiver,” Moser said. “He has practiced some on defense, but we put him there at two-deep safety in center field and he is such a freaking athlete.”
Trailing 28-21 with six minutes left in the second quarter following Farr’s third touchdown pass of the first half, the Starfires went to work.
James Arnold found Schoch for a 13-yard touchdown with 3:30 remaining.
Following a Drew Stutzman INT of Farr, Arnold trucked a poor Southwood defender to finish off an 11-yard TD run to put South Adams back in front with 58 seconds left.
But the Starfires (12-0) were not done. Schoch, inserted into the game as the second high safety to make things tougher for Farr, picked the QB off to give Arnold one more shot at points before the break.
Arnold came through, finding Stutzman for a 23-yard touchdown as time expired to put the Starfires up 40-28 at the break.
After half, the South Adams defense settled in, allowing just a single touchdown over the final 24 minutes.
While the secondary did its job, defensive pressure from the likes of Nick Miller, Austin Gorney, Jordan Hinshaw and others helped stymie Farr and the Knights (12-1). The Starfires stretched the lead to as many as 20, and celebrated their third regional championship in history in style postgame, all while administrators made sure that players and coaches put face shields on immediately after receiving the regional trophy.
“We talked at half about not even a play at the time, but chains at a time, every series of downs we wanted to win,” Moser said. “It worked out. I am so proud of these kids, they deserve it.”
Arnold finished with 435 yards passing and five touchdowns with one INT for the Starfires.
Stutzman and Wanner each went over 125 yards receiving, while Schoch hauled in 10 catches for 88 yards.
The Starfires advance and will play Lafayette Central Catholic (5-3) on the road next week in the Class 1A North Semistate.
These opinions represent those of Blitz and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Blitz on Twitter at Blitz_OTH
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