Columbia Academy simply ran into a buzz saw of an opponent Friday night at Indianola Academy — a team that hasn’t lost a game since the 2015 state championship and that loss came after a 14-0 start — and fell 43-16.
Head coach Randy Butler said Indianola is as good of a football team the Cougars have played against this season, which is high praise after taking on teams like Parklane Academy, Simpson Academy, Adams County Christian and Riverfield Academy.
“They’ve not missed a beat since last year. They’re a very physical, well-coached football team,” he said. “We did some things in the game we’ve not done in a long time. We had several motion and illegal procedure penalties — I think we had seven or eight of those. We missed a lot of tackles defensively. The running back they had really had a lot to do with that. He’s a good player. They had a lot to do with it, but we didn’t play particularly well in some spots, and that was the game.”
The loss marked the end of illustrious high school careers for an 18-member senior class that has had a large impact on turning the program around the last two years.
“They took the program up one more level. It’s not where I want it to be. I’d love to be playing again this week. If you look back at the last two years I’ve been here, we took a big step last year, then because of this group we took another step,” Butler said. “Going to the semifinals in year two of trying to get this program up to where I want it to be is really amazing. It’s a tribute to the players over the last couple of years. These seniors took it to another level this year.”
Indianola struck first on its home field with Sebastian Harris rumbling for a 35-yard touchdown, then an 11-yard touchdown to give the Colonels a 14-0 first quarter lead.
The Cougars responded, though, to open the second quarter as Ras Pace connected with Aaron Thomas for a 7-yard touchdown. Pace then ran in the two-point conversion to cut the deficit to 14-8. Just before the end of the half, however, Harris found pay dirt for the third time with a 20-yard touchdown run, putting Indianola up 21-8 heading into halftime.
Harris then kicked off the second half with another touchdown run, this time from 30 yards out to make it 28-8 with 11 minutes remaining in the third quarter. The Colonels added a 35-yard passing touchdown and a 70-yard rushing touchdown by Will Davis to take a commanding 43-8 lead late in the fourth quarter.
The Cougars added a late touchdown of their own as Pace found Riles Stuart open for a 45-yard touchdown with a minute to go, but the game was already far out of reach.
Despite the loss, Butler praised Thomas’ final football game of his high school career as well as his senior season as a whole.
“Aaron Thomas had a monster game,” he said. “He had 17 catches for more than 200 yards. He did what he’s done all year. He finished with more than 90 catches for more than 1,400 yards. He had an unbelievable year.”
A conversation between Butler and Indianola head coach Tommy Nester before the game stuck in Butler’s mind.
“I was talking to coach Nester before the game, and he said ‘Coach, y’all have a really good football team.’ I said, ‘Well, we went through a lot this year and have come a long way.’ He says, ‘Coach, when you get this far as one of the last four teams, you’ve got to be good playing in the semifinals.’ That was a huge compliment from him.”
While the Cougars are losing a lot of starters from this year’s team, there were a lot of underclassmen that played key roles in 2017, which will only benefit them next year.
“You look at the schedule that we played this year — and we played a lot of sophomores and juniors during that stretch and all the way through the year — the experience they got playing teams such as PCS, Purvis, West Marion, Parklane, Simpson and then playing three rounds in the playoffs it’ll serve them well next year,” Butler said. “It’ll help them grow into being better football players.”
Butler added that the Cougars will play against some public schools again next year, hosting West Marion and taking on Purvis on the road as a part of two-year agreements.
The Cougars finished the season 7-6, which is quite an accomplishment after starting the season 2-5 and playing one of the toughest schedules in the state for a private or public school.
