COLUMBUS
It would not have surprised anyone if Columbus East running back Mark McDonald was awarded a McDonald’s franchise at halftime Friday night.
Complete with a lifetime supply of Happy Meals and Big Macs.
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Heck, he was Big Mac to Seymour in their Hoosier Hills Conference football matchup, just one member of the host team that lived up to the nickname of Olympians in a one-sided game.
Besides his collection of TDs, McDonald rushed for 115 yards.
The Olympians came out wearing Halloween orange uniforms and gave the Owls a fright from the start, scoring 28 points in the first quarter and 28 more in the second quarter, a dizzying onslaught compounded by Seymour mistakes.
All of the scoring in the 56-0 decision was confined to the first half.
This was a stunning example of muscle flexing by Columbus East, now 6-2 and 5-0 in the league. Seymour is now 3-5 and in no way resembled the explosive team that lost high-scoring close games the last two weeks in a row.
Halloween horror-type nightmares aside for Seymour, coach Tyson Moore was making his first visit back to his old high school home field in a decade. He may never want to come back again. The old Olympian was not treated hospitably.
Moore had looked forward to returning.
“This is home to me,” he said. “You don’t want to think it will be one like this.”
Columbus East scored early and often and McDonald had four TDs by halftime.
Seymour aided and abetted Columbus opportunities. Quarterback Cody Ruble tossed three first-half interceptions and the Owls gave away two fumbles and had a punt blocked. Those are the kind of mistakes few teams can overcome. It was a reversion to the out-of-sorts first-game look Seymour had before running off three straight wins and then engaging in two high-powered offensive battles.
One Ruble interception was run back for a 14-yard touchdown and one fumble was returned for a touchdown by East, too.
The score was already 35-0 midway through the second quarter when Chandler Drummond returned a kickoff 69 yards to set up the Owls’ offense on the East 16-yard-line.
Six plays later (not including a do-over on a penalty), the Owls had to surrender the ball without crossing the goal-line. Four shots from the eight-yard-line and closer did not pay off.
It took Columbus just two-and-a-half minutes to march 97 yards to the touchdown that made it 42-0. This was a demoralizing exchange for the Owls, going from the cusp of a touchdown to yielding running burst after gain by McDonald and Tryce Villarreal.
The Indiana High School Athletic Association march rule calls for running time of the game clock in the second half and Columbus East had already reached the threshold in the first half.
It took exceptionally strong belief to think the Owls could pull together a comeback victory in the second half. Family and friends who journeyed the 25 miles to the game did greet Seymour players with the kind of morale-building cheer that disregarded any statistics.
Columbus East inserted back-ups and a fumble recovery by defensive back Evan Smith after a receiver’s catch gave the Owls the ball in Olympian territory, but things quickly stalled out.
The Olympian backups found the ball to be somewhat slippery on handoffs and hikes with some drops and they went scoreless in the third and fourth.
The running clock is part of what is called the mercy rule, but mercy was in short supply in this one.