Miners and Falcons, Part Two

Sports fans, if ever there was a game to decide who gets to go to Lucas Oil Stadium for the Class A State Finals, this is it.

Friday, November 20 at Roy Williams Field in Linton. The defending Class A state champion North Vermillion Falcons take on the Linton-Stockton Miners for most of the marbles.

The winner earns the right to play for the Class A state championship the day after Thanksgiving at The Luke. For the loser, the season becomes a question of "What might have been?"

Will this be the year the Miners finally get over the dreaded semistate hump that has stifled them so far? We'll find out Friday.

Five times in the past dozen years Linton-Stockton has made it to the semistate. Five times they've come up short.

In 2004 it was a 21-20 overtime loss to Cardinal Ritter at Roy Williams Field. A blocked extra point in overtime was all that stood between the Miners and a trip to the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.

In 2008 it was Ritter again. Ritter scored 22 points in the final 10 minutes erasing a 12-point deficit to win 30-26. If Linton-Stockton had been able to pick up a first down after the jump ball to Ritter's Tyrone Walker in the end zone, the Miners could have run the clock out. But it was not to be.

In 2011 and 2012 Indianapolis Scecina stood in the Miners' way on their path to Lucas Oil. The Miners were shut out 17-0 in the 2011 semistate.

Linton-Stockton came up just inches short in 2012 in another overtime loss. The Miners held Scecina to a field goal in overtime but were stopped just short of the goal line on their turn with the ball.

Linton-Stockton made its third straight semistate appearance in 2013. But a host of major injuries - and mistakes on the field - led to a 37-16 loss at Eastern Hancock.

And with Friday's 35-13 regional win at West Washington, the Miners earned their fourth semistate bid in five years.

West Washington was every bit as good as advertised and Linton-Stockton found itself in a dogfight with the Senators for the better part of three quarters.

The tide turned when West Washington's Landon McPheeters was stopped inches short of a first down late in the third quarter.

The Miners broke the game open with three touchdowns in the final stanza. The worn-down Senators had no answer.

Linton-Stockton had not allowed an opposing running back to rush for 100 yards all season. McPheeters ran for 123 in the first half alone, on 25 carries.

But he had nothing left in the tank late in the game. Part of that I'm sure was the Miner defense hitting him hard, over and over again. Part of it had to be the sheer workload he was carrying. McPheeters ran nearly two thirds - 39 - of West Washington's 60 offensive plays.

The Senators - and McPheeters - will be back next year.

Enough with the past already. The future is now.

The North Vermillion Falcons would like nothing better than to end the Miners' postseason hopes. As they did last year, defeating the Miners 31-8 at North Vermillion in the regional on their way to the state championship.

North Vermillion enters Friday's semistate contest 12-1 and Linton-Stockton is officially 12-1. The Miners were ranked third in Class A and the Falcons fifth in the final regular-season poll.

And of course NV would like nothing better than to avenge the 21-7 regular season setback on their home turf they suffered at the hands of the Miners September 11.

You can be certain North Vermillion coach Brian Crabtree has viewed the film from that game hundreds of times and will make the adjustments he thinks will put his team over the top this time.

As has Linton-Stockton mentor Brian Oliver.

It was the Miners' halftime adjustments after all that made the difference in the last meeting between these two.

Both teams matched up so well with each other athletically neither team was successful in running outside to the edges.

Linton altered its strategy to run straight up the gut at the Falcons. The strategy paid off in a grind-it-out scoring drive, and a quick strike from Tyler Meurer to Pierce Jackson on the next possession.

Regardless of Friday's outcome, the Linton-Stockton and North Vermillion programs have the utmost respect for each other.

Are you ready for some football? Postseason football at its finest!

Terry Schwinghammer is a sports writer for the Greene County Daily World. He can be reached by telephone at (812) 847-4487, ext. 27. He can also be reached via email at tschwing32@yahoo.com.