By John Regruth
For The Tribune
MADISON
An unplanned, spur-of-the-moment trip to Madison, which is lovely this time of year, is an experience enjoyed by many Hoosiers.
For Brownstown Central’s football team, however, an unexpected trip to the river town was another detour in COVID-era scheduling after its originally scheduled game with Eastern Pekin was cancelled Friday morning.
Both teams facing a free Friday night, Brownstown and Madison hastily agreed to play and the result was an entertaining back-and-forth 49-35 victory for the Braves.
The game was dominated by the quarterbacks. Madison’s slippery Kaden Oliver gave BC’s defense fits while scrambling for 57 yards and a touchdown while throwing for 273 yards and three TDs.
Luckily for the Braves, Carson Darlage was up to the challenge. The junior QB had his best game of the season, throwing for two touchdowns and running for three more.
Darlage ended with 103 yards on the ground and 131 yards in the air, including TD throws of 61 yards to Eli Lane and 50 yards to Kiernan Tiemeyer.
Senior Jake Pauley also ran for more than 100 yards — a game-high 123 yards on 12 carries — and two scores.
In all, the Braves ran for 339 yards, their third 300-plus yard rushing game of the season.
Pauley started the scoring for Brownstown with a 26-yard run in the first quarter. A Darlage TD run and his scoring throws to Lane and Tiemeyer lifted BC to a 28-12 lead midway through the second quarter.
Led by Oliver, Madison scored the game’s next 23 points to assume a 35-28 lead with 3:42 to go in the third period.
Brownstown would control the game thereafter, however, shutting out the Cubs over the next 15 minutes while scoring three more times to secure the victory.
Senior Cooper Wolka was perfect all night, hitting all seven extra points.
All in all, it was an impressive performance for a BC team that didn’t know it was playing its opponent until about eight hours before kickoff.
Brownstown Central football’s Twitter account announced the originally scheduled game with Eastern Pekin early on Friday morning. By late morning, the Eastern game had been cancelled due to COVID issues and the Madison game had been announced as a replacement.
Though the cancellation may sound sudden, it isn’t the latest the Braves have seen a game scratched. Last season, BC was en route to a season-opening game at Corydon when it was cancelled, forcing the team bus to turn around and head home.
For Madison, its scheduled contest with Carroll County (Ky.) was cancelled on Wednesday and several attempted backup games also fell through. Then Brownstown called, and Friday’s impromptu game was on.
The two schools previously played just once, a 12-0 Brownstown victory back in 1977.