Columbus East’s Kyson Villarreal, in orange, is stopped short of the goal line by a group of New Albany defenders Sept. 15 at Columbus East.
Friday night is the perfect opportunity for Columbus East to seek vengeance.
After falling to Seymour in the regular season, the Olympians are hoping to turn the tide when the two teams battle at Stafford Field in the Class 5A sectional semifinals. In the other sectional semifinal, 5A No. 1 Bloomington North hosts 5A No. 3 Bloomington South.
East fell to the Owls 41-26 in the third week of the regular season on Sept. 1.
If the Olympians want to flip the scoreboard, they will have to contain Seymour’s most explosive playmaker in quarterback Bret Perry. Perry picked apart the East defense in the regular season matchup. He threw for 405 yards and five touchdowns and rushed for 39 yards.
“I think they’ve got the best collective group of kids that we’ve seen all year to be really honest, and it does start with Perry,” East coach Eddie Vogel said. “They did some things and came out and attacked us in things they have not shown up until that point. (Seymour coach and East graduate) Tyson (Moore) does a really good job scheming some things up.”
The high-powered Owls offense averaged 44.6 points per game during the first eight weeks of the season. They ran into a buzzsaw with Bloomington South and finished the regular season with a goose egg on the scoreboard, losing 47-0.
The Seymour defense is vulnerable for the Olympians to exploit. The Owls have allowed 31.4 points per game. The question for East is whether it can keep up with Seymour offensively. The Olympians averaged 19.6 points during the regular season. In four of its six losses, though, East couldn’t score more than 10 points, including being shut out twice.
“They’ve put up points on pretty much everybody,” Vogel said. “It’s going to be a challenge for us to try to be able to slow them down, but it’s really just about at this time of the year winning, surviving and moving on. We’ve got to try to find a way to get them off the field and get some stops, and we know we’re going to have to score some points offensively to be able to stay with them.”
Even though the Olympians are a 14-point underdog going into the matchup, according to the Jeff Sagarin rating, they are hoping to win their first home sectional game since 2018. Ironically, that opponent was Seymour.
“In playoff football, it’s win or go home. There’s pressure on both teams to be able to execute. They had a really good plan for us in the first time we played them,” Vogel said. “We feel like we prepared our guys very well with the bye week and this week. It’s really just going to come down to execution. Whichever team executes better, puts points on the board or keeps the other from putting points on the board, they’re the team that’s going to win.”
