Lowell can't slow down Dwenger

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FORT WAYNE — Kirk Kennedy’s voice was straining as he tried to speak over the din of cheering Bishop Dwenger football players about 50 yards away, of a particularly peppy pep band, of hundreds of giddy fans slapping five and smacking helmets in delight.

Kennedy was telling his team to be disappointed, but not discouraged. To be upset, but not distraught. To keep their heads up, not to hang them.

“Nobody here has a reason to bury his head,” Kennedy told his Lowell players after their 38-22 loss to Dwenger in the Class 4A northern semistate at Zollner Stadium on Saturday night.

He’s right, of course. There’s no shame in a 13-1 season, in a regional championship, in a sixth straight sectional title. And there’s certainly no shame in losing to 14-0 Dwenger — the Saints were bigger, stronger, faster than Lowell, or anyone Lowell had seen all year.

But the Red Devils were fighting just to keep their heads up. They were grimacing, sniffling — some outright sobbing. Because the Red Devils don’t think that way. They always expect to win.

“Yeah, they’re a great team,” said senior linebacker Justin Juarez, who had a defensive game for the ages. “But I know we should have won that game. I know it.”

But in the end, confidence and pride couldn’t win out over talent and size.

“It’s the worst feeling in the world,” said junior tailback Brandon Grubbe — who was at an Indianapolis hospital with a broken arm when last season ended at the RCA Dome in a state final loss to Evansville Reitz.

The worst feeling, perhaps, but one of the best games a region team has seen in some time. A wild affair that saw a defensive stalemate turn into a shocking shootout, with plenty of jaw-dropping plays on both sides.

“Just two great teams going at it,” Kennedy said.

Things looked good early for the Red Devils, as they dodged three huge bullets in the first half. Three times, Dwenger took advantage of a short field and got into the red zone, only to come up empty each time — on a Juarez interception at the 3, a Robby Kimes fumble at the 13, and a missed 21-yard field goal by Emerson Ueber.

After Ueber's miss, though, things got wild. A clock-operating mistake and a subsequent officiating mistake put 19 extra seconds on the clock, giving Lowell the ball with 2:00 left in the half. And with the ground game stifled, three huge Kurt Monix passes — a 45-yarder to Jacob Belt, a 19-yarder to Cody Midgett and a 20-yard touchdown pass to Grubbe — gave Lowell a 7-0 lead with 41.1 seconds left.

The game was just getting started, though. Lowell had been figuratively living on borrowed time thanks to the three red zone stalls by Dwenger, but the Saints wound up taking advantage of actual borrowed time.

A pooch kickoff by Lowell went awry, as Notre Dame recruit Tyler Eifert picked it up and ran it back 71 yards — hurdling a Lowell player along the sideline at midfield — to the Lowell 8.

This time, Dwenger cashed in on a Trevor Yerrick 8-yard touchdown pass to Joe Colone with 5.4 seconds left, making those extra 19 seconds particularly important.

The wildness continued in a 32-point third quarter. Dwenger opened with a fiel goal, and Lowell responded with a 44-yard touchdown run by Cody Midgett three plays later. Two plays after that, Colone broke loose for a 58-yard touchdown run, with Midgett blocking the extra point.

Two series later, Grubbe had a 37-yard touchdown run, and three plays after that, Yerrick tossed a 63-yard TD pass to a wide-open Joel Gerardot, with Dwenger making the two-point conversion.

“We just started slugging it out,” Juarez said. “It was crazy.”

All that left Dwenger with a 24-22 lead with about two minutes to play in the third quarter. At that point, Lowell seemed to run out of gas on offense, with three straight unproductive series.

Eifert then made a spectacular diving catch in the corner of the end zone for a 19-yard score, but Juarez blocked the extra point to keep it a one-possession ballgame at 30-22. But Lowell had nothing left, and a three-and-out set up Dwenger’s final score of the night — a 26-yard pass from Yerrick to Gerardot with 57.7 seconds left.

Yerrick wound up with four TD passes on only six completions. Grubbe ran for 107 yards on 25 carries, with most of his success coming in the second half. Juarez had the interception, the blocked kick, a sack and several big tackles throughout the game.

“We both made big plays,” Juarez said. “They just made a couple more.”

And on one end of the field, utter jubilation, with a trip to Lucas Oil Stadium on the horizon. And on the other end of the field, utter devastation, with a long trip home and no opponent on the horizon.

“To think I’ll never play with these seniors again, it’s hard,” Grubbe said. “They deserved better.”

Contact Mark Lazerus at 648-3140 or mlazerus@post-trib.com