Phone: 317-846-6601 Fax: 317-575-4244 Website: www.ihsaa.org
Blake Ress, Commissioner
_________________________________________________________________________
November 28, 2008
CARDINAL RITTER DENIES
SHERIDAN FOURTH STRAIGHT CROWN
Indianapolis Cardinal Ritter
completed a perfect 15-0 campaign with a 34-27 victory over Sheridan (13-2) in
the Class A state championship game at Lucas Oil
Stadium in Indianapolis. It was the first state championship game played in the
new venue which opened in August.
Ritter’s win ended
Sheridan’s bid for a fourth straight Class A crown and also halted the
Blackhawks’ 23-game tournament win streak. It was Ritter’s first
win over Sheridan in three previous title game meetings including an overtime
loss in 2006. It was Ritter’s third football state championships to go
along with Class A crowns in 1977 and 2003.
Raiders quarterback Ross Hendrickson
scored the go-ahead touchdown from four yards out with :40
seconds remaining in the game. Tied at 27-27, Sheridan seemed poised to take
the fourth quarter lead taking possession on Ritter’s 40 yard line
following a punt, but Ritter’s Kendall Moore recovered a Nick Zachery
fumble two plays later at his own 25 yard line with 5:12 remaining. Hendrickson
then marched the Ritter offense downfield including picking up
a 14 yards on fourth and one from the Sheridan 32. Four plays later he
punched it across the goal line.
Sheridan had knotted the game up
with just under seven minutes left in the game.
Zachary intercepted a Hendrickson pass and returned it 23 yards before he was
knocked out of bounds at the Ritter 11 yard line. On third down, Ty Perkins scored from eight
yards out and Austin King’s extra point tied the game at 27-27.
Both offenses had their way in the
first half combining for 47 first half points and a 27-20 Ritter lead at
halftime.
Ritter’s Tyrone Walker, who
set Class A game records with 11 receptions for 183 yards, caught a 20 yarder
from Hendrickson on the game’s opening drive. Raider wideout
John Shockley, who picked up 132 yards through the air, ran for one first half
touchdown and caught two others from Hendrickson including a 33-yarder that put
Ritter up 27-13.
Brent Hume answered for Sheridan on
its first possession scoring from four yards away and later added a one yard
score that cut the Ritter lead to 19-13. With 2:36 remaining in the half, senior
Ty Perkins stepped in as quarterback for the Blackhawks on fourth and five and
connected with Zachery from 23 yards out. The extra point made it 27-20.
Hendrickson set Class A championship
game records with 27 pass completions and 423 yards and tied the attempts mark
with 47. Ritter also set the new game record with 530 yards of offense and two
teams combined for 899 yards of offense, a state finals record regardless of
class.
Ritter was coached by third year
leader Ty Hunt. Sheridan was coached by Larry “Bud” Wright, the
state’s winningest active coach with a mark of
351-146 in 44 years.
SHERIDAN’S
BRENT HUME NAMED ESKEW MENTAL ATTITUDE AWARD WINNER
Following
the game, the IHSAA Executive Committee named Sheridan’s Brent Hume as
the winner of the Phil N. Eskew Mental Attitude
Award.
Hume played
both ways for the Blackhawks as running back and linebacker and also has
lettered in wrestling and track.
Hume has
been vice-president of his class for four years, a four-year member of the
student council, a three-year member of the National Honor Society and is the
Spanish Club president. He also participates in the peer tutoring program
reading to third grade students in the Sheridan school system.
Academically,
Hume ranks second in his class with a 4.03 GPA on a 4.0 scale. He is undecided
on his college choice but would like to major in biology with an eye toward
optometry.
He is the
eighth Sheridan football player to win the mental attitude award and second in
three years following Taylor Scott who won in 2006.
Hume is the
son of Perry and Cheri Hume of Sheridan.
The award
is presented annually to a senior participant in the state finals who was
nominated by his principal and coach and has demonstrated excellence in mental
attitude, scholarship, leadership and athletic ability. It is named in honor of
the IHSAA’s third commissioner who served the
association from 1962-76 and who helped initiate the state tournament in 1973.
Indiana
Farm Bureau Insurance presented a $1,000 scholarship to Sheridan High School in
the name of Hume.
Class A
Game Quotes
Indianapolis Cardinal Ritter Head
Coach Ty Hunt
“My
hat’s off to our guys; they kept believin’. I told them the ball was going to bounce our
way, it did, and we’re state champs.
This was a great ball game; it was a great ball game last time we played
Sheridan. I told (Sheridan) Coach Wright
we were looking for another great game and that’s what we
had.”
(On
Quarterback Ross Hendrickson and Receivers)
“They
work hard in practice and that’s what made the difference tonight. They
stayed after dark the other night going over and over the routes. That’s where it gets done.”
“My
hat’s off to our players. There at
the end with that drive (that won it), I told Ross (Hendrickson) we were going
to keep the ball in his hands and that we just had to get it done. Wow … I can’t believe we’re
state champs.”
“Our
‘06 team had a lot of heart. This
group has a lot of heart and then some.
Not to take anything away from that group, but we got it done
tonight.”
(On
Sheridan coach Bud Wright)
“Bud
Wright is a fabulous coach, you know they are going to have their
i’s dotted and
their t’s crossed. (Nick) Zachery and (Ty) Perkins are great
athletes, like a lot of their guys, and we just feel great about the game we
had against them tonight.”
Sheridan Head Coach Larry
“Bud” Wright
“These
kids have done a heck of a job for four years and I am very proud of what they
have accomplished. We would have liked to go out as winners, but sometimes it
doesn’t happen that way. Ritter has a good football team and we do to
– they just came out on top.”
“Fumbles
hurt us in the second half and we should have scored one more time but that was
my fault. We had a couple of opportunities, but just didn’t cash in on
them in the second half.”
“Both
teams in the first half had to adjust to each others speed. They’re
passing and Ritter had to adjust to our running. Both teams got settled in in the second half and that’s why there was less
scoring.”
“Our
accomplishments have been outstanding in the last four years. It hurts now, but
they’ll look back and be proud of the way they’ve played and it
won’t hurt as bad as it does now.”
“We’ve
fought back all year. We haven’t lost very often. We were going to play
hard to the end. We just came up short because we had a couple of miscues. But
we win as a team and lose as a team.”
(On quarterback
Nick Zachery)
“He’s
had a great career. He is a player that has meant a lot to the program. When he
was an eighth grader when we came off the field in a regional loss against
Seeger, he said ‘Coach, it won’t happen again and it just about
didn’t.’ ”
Quaterback Nick Zachery
“It
was a great first half and we just kept trading touchdowns. We knew it would be
a fight to the end. We lost this one, but if we look back, we had a lot of wins
and three state championships.”
“We
had two opportunities there at the end to go ahead but they ended with fumbles.
Ritter is a great team and played a great game. They went down and drove it and
scored in the last minute to win.”
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