For The Tribune
Another wild fourth quarter broke against Seymour’s football team on Friday night.
The Owls and visiting New Albany scored 35 points in a back-and-forth final period. Seymour overcame a 14-point deficit and took a brief lead before the Bulldogs used a late score to claim a 42-35 victory.
New Albany’s speedsters generated touchdown plays of 19, 23, 48, 81 and 93 yards. Of course, the winning TD came on a simple one-yard plunge by Myles Johnson with 3:55 left in the game.
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The loss handed Seymour a second straight tough defeat. Last week, the Owls fell to Brownstown, 43-42, in an impossibly exciting contest that was decided in the final seconds.
On Friday, New Albany looked as if it would put Seymour away early, but the Owls never quit.
Seymour fell behind, 21-7, two minutes into the second half when New Albany’s Tim Johnson took a Derrell Simmons pass 48 yards for a touchdown.
That’s when the Owls (3-4) turned to workhorse running back Colin Greathouse. The senior, who finished with 123 yards on 21 carries, scored three touchdowns in the second half to keep his team in the game.
With 5:19 left in the game, Greathouse’s backfield mate, Chandler Drummond, broke through New Albany’s defensive line for a 28-yard scoring run that put the Owls ahead, 35-34.
But speed was the ever-present weapon in the Bulldogs’ arsenal.
New Albany responded to Drummond’s TD with a four-play, 80-yard drive that ended with the winning one-yard touchdown.
The Bulldogs finished with 387 rushing yards and two 100-yard rushers (Myles Johnson with 167 on 26 attempts and Simmons with 137 on just five rushes).
New Albany needed that yardage to overcome an astonishing 215 penalty yards, including 11 unsportsmanlike or personal foul penalties. Three Bulldog players were ejected from the game.
Besides Greathouse’s excellent work, Seymour got 61 yards from Drummond and 144 passing yards from quarterback Cody Ruble (on 11-for-22 passing).
Seymour’s defense was led by Evan Smith and Caleb Elliott, who ended with nine tackles each. Elliott, Josh Pennington and Russell Shuler each added tackles for loss.
At the 10:22 mark of the fourth quarter, the game was halted for 15 minutes when New Albany’s Avarion Chambers was injured while trying to tackle Jack Pennington at the end of a 21-yard reception at the Bulldogs’ 7 yard line. Chambers was attended to by medical personnel before being carted off the field and transported away from the scene by ambulance.