Sluggish first half costs the Vandals
Vandalia quarterback Andrew Kelly hands off to Jay Keck during Friday’s game. Keck’s touchdown with just under 7 minutes in the game got the Vandals within three, 31-28.
It was a tale of two halves, with a comeback effort by the Vandals coming up short in the regular season finale last Friday.
Litchfield held a 17-6 lead at halftime and was up 31-6 when Vandalia started its comeback at the end of the third quarter.
Quarterback Andrew Kelly scored on a 64-yard run, and then added the two-point conversion to make it 31-14 and started the Vandals’ run.
Vandalia’s Kohnor Depew tries to break free of a Litchfield defender in Friday’s contest.
Kelly then hooked up with Kohnor Depew on a 49-yard scoring play to make it 31-20, and a 12-yard run by Jay Keck, with a two-point conversion run by Kelly, made it 31-28 with 6:52 left in the game.
Litchfield scored with 4:36 left to give the Panthers a 38-28 lead.
The Vandals’ comeback effort died when Litchfield recovered on an onside kick.
The loss gives the Vandal a regular season record of 6-3, and dashed their hopes of hosting a first-round game in the postseason playoffs.
Vandalia now travels to Lawrenceville for a 2 p.m. game on Saturday in the first round of the IHSA Class 3 playoffs.
Vandals coach Jason Clay summed up the loss with just three words – “too many mistake.”
“You can’t give a good team that many chances – missed tackles and turnovers; blu ndes on this and blunders on that,” Clay said. “We’ve got to execute better. The first half, we looked lethargic, and offensively, we couldn’t run the ball.
“We found a couple of things in the second half, where we were able to run it, and then part of it, took is if you get the ball moving, it’s a little bit easier to execute. And then you can mix and match, and wear on people a little bit.
“But they had a couple of key drives that were just enough to keep the chains moving,” Clay said. “They needed a big play, and they were able to get it. They were able to run it just enough to get first downs when they had to.”
Clay had high praise for his team’s second half effort in a game in which it would have been easy to give up, especially after giving up a touchdown with just seconds left in the first half.
“At one point we were down 31-6 and we got it back up to 38-34, so it just shows what we’re capable of,” Clay said.
“We just can’t let it get to 31-6 – that’s the problem. But we gave it everything we had coming back.”
Photos/VCHS Vandalois Sophia McNealy
