After struggling offensively in season-opening losses to Silver Creek and Jeffersonville, Seymour went back to the basics Friday night.
While the Owls dropped their third consecutive football game, they had a far better showing against one of the state’s top teams than in recent years. Seymour scored five touchdowns in a 56-30 Hoosier Hills Conference loss at Class 5A No. 7 Columbus East.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
“We were really bad offensively the first two weeks, and that is 100 percent on me,” Seymour coach Josh Shattuck said. “We were trying to do too much. We have a lot of new kids who haven’t played at this level before who are good athletes. We went back to our roots and what we hang our hat on, and that’s option football and running the ball downhill and reading people at the line of scrimmage.”
Junior quarterback Alan Perry was the main beneficiary of that. He accounted for five touchdowns, running for four and passing for another.
Perry finished 11 of 22 for 133 yards through the air and led the Owls (0-3, 0-2) with 127 yards rushing on 26 carries.
“I thought our offensive line had a great game, and Alan Perry was just phenomenal,” Shattuck said. “He got back on track. I thought he did a really good job of getting us in everything we needed to get into to have success on offense.”
Jackson Morris led Seymour in receiving with three catches for 54 yards. Scotty Nieves added two catches for 22 yards, including a 23-yard touchdown catch with seven seconds left in the first half that cut the lead to 28-12.
The Owls, after committing four turnovers in a 29-16 loss at Silver Creek and two turnovers in a 29-15 loss to Jeffersonville, did not turn the ball over at East.
“We took care of the ball,” Shattuck said. “We punted when we had to and flipped the field a couple times. Our kickoff and kick return teams were significantly better. We just put together a total game in that regard.”
The Olympians’ victory was its 44th in a row in the HHC.
“Columbus East is Columbus East,” Shattuck said. “That’s why they have the program they have. They have D-I talent. They have top-notch coaching. I don’t know that we could play much better. We’re pleased with this because we know we can build off of this. We know we won’t see a team as good as this the rest of the year.”