Turnovers, penalties doom Sandwich

Updated: September 24, 2011 12:33AM

Losses are always hard to take, but they sting a little more when a team is its own worst enemy.

When Sandwich looks back at its 31-20 Interstate Eight Large conference loss at Coal City, the Indians (4-1, 2-1) will know they only have themselves to blame because about the only place they didn’t have an advantage on the Coalers was on the scoreboard — which is all that counts.

In a game of contrasts between Coal City’s spread offense and Sandwich’s option attack, the Indians controlled the ball for much of the game and owned a 319-247 edge in total yards. Unfortunately, they also turned the ball over four times and were hit with 10 penalties for 125 yards, including two costly personal foul penalties that kept Coal City scoring drives alive.

“All week we preached that doing the little things would win this game,” Sandwich coach Dusty Behringer said. “I thought we played really well but we have some little things to correct.”

Sandwich had the momentum early in the second quarter, as touchdowns by P.J. Crotty and Spencer Carlson had given the Indians a 13-7 lead. But then the mistakes started coming, and the Coalers took advantage, posting two touchdowns in the final 3:37 of the half to take a 21-13 advantage into the break.

It got worse after halftime as Carlson fumbled on the Sandwich 10-yard line and the Coalers punched in another score when Cody Onsen (169 yards passing) hit Matt Haloran from 16 yards out to push the cushion to 28-13 just two minutes into the third.

Sandwich responded five minutes later when Carlson capped a 10-play, 80-yard drive and scored from a yard out to make it 28-20. But in their final two possessions, the Indians gave the ball away on a fumble and saw a potential game-tying drive stopped at the 3-yard line when Seth McDonald was tackled on fourth down with 10 minutes to go.

Coal City took the ball and played keepaway from there — running 15 straight times — and capped off an 84-yard drive with a 31-yard field goal by Ryan Bloom with 20 seconds left to close out the game.

“It’s frustrating, they are a good team but we had our chances,” said Carlson, who rushed for a team-high 128 yards on 17 carries. “That team didn’t make dumb mistakes like we did and we have to clean that up in practice.”

Crotty finished with 83 yards in 20 carries for Sandwich, and caught both of quarterback Derrick Risley’s passes for 47 yards.　

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