Football Friday: Postseason play begins as Tiger Cubs take on Cadets; Cougars host Golden Arrows while Eagles get shot at defending champs

It’s win-or-go home season.

Friday, the IHSAA Football State Tournament begins for Classes A through 4A, a festival of gridiron goodness that finishes across the Thanksgiving weekend.

Three of the four Putnam County teams will begin their quest for a state title tonight with Greencastle heading to Cascade and North Putnam hosting No. 17 Sullivan in Class 2A Sectional No. 37 while No. 9 South Putnam travels to No. 1 Indianapolis Lutheran in Class A Sectional No. 47 for the second of its back-to-back weeks against teams at the top of the standings.

The Tiger Cubs and Cadets will be meeting for the first time since 2018 when the latter was still in the WIC.

Cascade has already picked up two wins against county teams, defeating Cloverdale 74-0 and North Putnam 40-21, and will look to make it a hat trick of victories Friday.

Liam Farmer continues to be the focus of the Cadet offense, having finished the regular season with 1,857 yards rushing, double the total of the rest of the team combined, on 230 carries and 27 touchdowns. Farmer also leads the team in receiving yards with 191 while on eight receptions from Brady Trebley, who was 32-of-54 for 624 yards, seven touchdown and three interceptions this season. Farmer was also the leading tackler on defense with 72 tackles.

“Last week was the best preparation for this week,” Greencastle interim coach Matt Helmer said. “(Noah) Claycomb is not built like Farmer but there are a lot of similarities in what they do.

“You can’t simulate what (Cascade) is doing with our scout offense and he is a very hard runner. We focused a lot of attention on being in the right position, the right fit and finishing the tackle, which has not be a strong suit for us the last few weeks.

“In the secondary, it starts and ends with disciplined football,” Helmer added. “We talked about one-on-one battles and winning those, even if sometimes winning the battle is just doing your job.”

Further afield, South Putnam will be seeing the best combination of both of its prior two opponents in a trip to defending state champions Lutheran.

The Saints have been far from shy when it comes to spreading the ball around as Jackson Willis runs the offense, having thrown for 2,578 yards on 126-of-189 attempts, throwing for 34 touchdowns against four interceptions.

Micah Mackay has been the go-to receiver, reeling in 43 catches for 939 yards and 11 touchdowns while Curbrian Shelby has 642 yards on 24 catches and 11 scores. Four other receivers have over 100 yards on the season with Devuan Jones catching 27 passes for 477 yards and five touchdowns.

Joe Davis had provided balance on the ground with 944 yards on 127 carries and 16 trips to the end zone as part of a rushing game that has added 1,491 yards to the offensive tally.

Jonny Hall and Spencer Bauer lead the defense with over 60 tackles each for a squad giving up around two touchdowns a game, having held four teams to a score or less and only giving up more than 20 points once in 2022 when Triton Central scored 41 points on Sept 2.

“(Lutheran) is fundamentally sound everywhere,” Sorrell said. “They run a base 3-3 stack and it’s going to take us doing something offensively to get them out of that.

“They move around a little bit and we have to prove we can throw the ball into their cover-3 or run into their six-man front. Most of their games have been blowouts and they haven’t had to do much adjusting.

“Offensively, they’re like us in that they have four receivers they can throw to, a quarterback who can get the ball to them and a 1,000-yard rusher,” Sorrell added. “They have a sophomore quarterback who is getting the ball to his playmakers, which makes it hard to defend them, so we have to do what we did to Heritage Christian, which is to get pressure on the quarterback and make them make a few mistakes.”

North Putnam will be the only team inside the county borders, hosting Sullivan, a team the Cougars had played in the regular season since joining the WIC until this year.

Using a variety of formations on offense, the Golden Arrows have mainly relied on the arm and legs of Rowdy Adams as the senior has thrown for 1,667 on 102-of-188 passing for 22 touchdowns and six interceptions while also gaining 525 yards on 95 carries for seven scores.

Luke Adams has been the main man in the receiving department, catching 52 passes for 835 yards and 14 scores while James Propes has 28 catches for 506 yards and six touchdowns and DJ Gaines has 23 receptions for 314 yards. Lane Deckard has balanced out the running game with 575 yards on 127 carries.

Defensively, Luke Adams leads the team with 81 tackles while Josh Wence has 74 tackles, including a team-high 10 for loss. Seth Pirtle has 10 turnovers for Sullivan, including three interceptions in the win over Greencastle earlier this season.

“(Sullivan) has a good group of kids, good athletes, explosive playmakers and does a good job with what they do game in and game out,” North Putnam head coach Scott Moore said. “We have our work cut out for us but we feel good about game plan and had a great week of practice over break.

“There are definitely a couple of players we need to know where to know where they are all the time. Rowdy Adams at quarterback has a great arm and great feet, so we need to make sure we do a good job of keeping contain in the passing lanes.

“They make you be balanced on defense and we have to do a good job of communicating where guys are and knowing why they are there.”