Monix to Belt last minute TD pass lifts Lowell over Griffith 19-13 to win 4A Regional Championship

LOWELL (11-14-2008) - Sometimes I wonder why grown people and their almost grown children stand in the middle of a field in winter-like temperatures to watch some large boys roll around in the mud for two hours.  And then there's Lowell and Griffith.  The Devils rallied on the road to beat South Bend Washington, came from behind to beat undefeated Plymouth in overtime and then survived the Danny Smith pass-catching show of Clay.

But then came Lowell and Griffith.  As nearly 4,000 fans looked on with mood swings hitched to a roller coaster, Lake County's two dominant 4A teams slugged it out in the mud until the Devils made a play that could not be denied.

Kurt Monix's 37-yard, cross field third down pass into the wind was snatched away from two defenders by fellow senior Jake Belt on the final home field play of their careers, breaking a 13-13 tie and giving Lowell the school's fifth regional championship, 19-13 over the arch rival Panthers.  Belt's leaping catch with 28 seconds left in regulation time tipped the scales in a championship struggle between two proud teams that battled each other on amazingly even terms in the final Lake County football high school game of the season.

It wasn't the best game in recent history at Lowell, but it might have been the most dramatic.  In a do-or-die regional final, Griffith had the ball in a tie game 3rd-and-5 at their own 36 with 1:08 to go before two thunderbolts decided who would survive.  Greg Joyce under threw a pass down the home sideline to Mark Blount and Cody Midgett intercepted for Lowell, running the ball back 15 yards to the Griffith 45 yard line. Then, in a play that all in uniform will remember as long as they care to, the Devils won the game with a play that had to be seen to be believed.

If Lowell simply ran for two yards and a first down and then spiked the ball, they'd have had three plays left to try to break the tie.  But Lowell put it all on one play.

"They'd been double covering Cody all day," Belt explained in the post-game celebration.  "He was on the other (left) side.  They had man-to-man on my side.  I didn't beat them.  They were there.  I took the ball away from one of them.  They were there."

Monix said, "We got him (Belt) on the wide side of the field.  I knew he'd get it.  It's a mismatch.  He'll go up and get it.  Coach French (assistant coach and former 1,000-yard rusher Mike French) called it.

"They were double teaming Cody on every play," French explained.  "We knew Jake could beat the guy they had on him and we knew the safety couldn't get there in time.  Kurt made a great throw."

"I knew what was called," smiled Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy, who might have been OK with simply picking up the first down on 3rd-and-2.  "I heard it on the headset.  Coach (Jim) Carlson is about 10 yards away from me on the sidelines.  I can't get to him that quickly."

"We were fortunate to come out with a win," said Monix.  "Griffith's a great team and they obviously played a great game."

This great game was the last of a dying bread.  Everybody is going to artificial turf and spread offenses but Lowell and Griffith took to the muddy turf with running offenses and hard-hitting defenses.  Receivers got single coverage while running backs got maximum resistance.  Griffith (8-5) scored on its first possessions when Joyce cut back on an option play and ran away from the Lowell defense for a 58-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 9:46 left in the first quarter.

Lowell, which defeated Griffith 27-12 in September, came back immediately.  Monix, who rarely runs anything other than a QB sneak, took an option play off the right side 41 yards to the end zone to tie the game with 6:11 left in the first quarter.  But Lowell's Matt Berkos, who had made 40 extra points in a row, missed the conversion, leaving Griffith with a 7-6 lead after one quarter.  The Panthers consistently brought eight men to the line of scrimmage to stop Lowell's running attack and Monix responded with a 10-yard pass to Ray Skamay for a first down at the Griffith 49-yard-line.

Two plays later, Monix rolled out to his right and fired a long ball towards Midgett, who had drifted behind the Griffith defense.  Midgett, the Devils' multi-position running back-wide receiver and cornerback, came back to the ball, caught it at the Panther 20 and ran away from the defense again to give Lowell a 13-7 lead.

But Griffith's Mark Blount intercepted Monix at midfield with 4:11 left in the half and the Panthers went in to score.  Austin Guzior, who never left the field as a senior fullback-linebacker, broke an option play at the line of scrimmage and raced 16 yards to tie the game with 1:37 to go before halftime.  Midgett blocked the extra point to leave the arch rivals even at the 20-minute halftime break.

Lowell mounted a third quarter drive, but Blunt intercepted Monix at the Griffith 13 to keep the game even going to the final period.  The game bogged down as neither team could run.  Grubbe, who has 3,000 yards rushing in two seasons, was held to 48 yards on 16 carries.  Panther sophomore Ed Johnson, who has 1,100 yards rushing, was held to 50 yards on 13 carries.  Both teams punted twice in the fourth period as the players seemed hopelessly slowed and covered with mud from week-long rains.  Then Midgett's interception with 58 seconds left set up Lowell for one last chance and Monix, whose hands were covered with mud, threw the perfect fade to Belt, who made the perfect catch and stayed on his feet the final five yards into the end zone.

"We're fortunate it came out our way," Monix said.  "It's what quarterbacking is all about.  You throw the interceptions and you have to come back.  I judge myself so hard but the whole sideline is screaming for me to keep my head up and keep trying.  We've just got to come back.  The people around you depend on you and you have to lead them."

For Griffith and long time coach Russ Radtke, it had to be a devastating loss.  Even after Belt scored to put Lowell ahead, Joyce hit Blount for a 32-yard gain to the Lowell 43 with five seconds to play.  On the final play of the game, the Panthers flooded the left side of the field and got tight end Mark Butkus isolated against Midgett down the home side lines.  As the ball was thrown, the entire stadium gasped as Midgett slipped in the mud and Butkus got behind him. The pass was under thrown and was deflected by Midgett, but had Butkus caught the tipped ball, he'd still have scored what could have been the game winning TD.

"It would have worked if we could have gotten the ball to him with the wind," Radtke agreed.  "The ball must have slipped out of his (Joyce's) hand.  It's awful wet and muddy out there. Butkus had him (Lowell defender Cody Midgett) beat.  No doubt.  The deep outside third.  But the ball didn't get there."

"Our biggest mistake is that we told him not to throw the ball where number 6 (Cody Midgett) is when the game was tied and we threw that interception at the end of the game.  That's just the character of the kid.  He was trying to make a play but it was good defense.  He intercepted the ball.  They should have never gotten the ball back for the play that won.  It should have gone into overtime.  But that's the kind of thing that happens."

Except for the two touchdown runs, Lowell controlled a Panther attack that had averaged 300 yards rushing per game over the last six weeks.  Griffith didn't have the passing game to hurt Lowell as a couple of others have this season.

"I thought we played very well," said linebacker Justin Juarez, who played on his second consecutive regional championship team.  "They got that touchdown at the start and that shouldn't happen.  We should have made that tackle.  But I thought we did very well after that."

"Against Griffith," Kennedy said, "it's tough to get up to game speed against their option without them breaking a big play.  If you can adjust to game speed without them scoring on you, you're in good shape."

The Devils were out-gained by Griffith until the final minute but the defenses had an edge on a very sloppy surface.

"They really shut down our run," said Juarez (6-4, 227), who is also Lowell's starting right guard.  "That was frustrating.  We'd get a few cracks, but we didn't get much.  That's a good team."

As an offensive lineman, Juarez was a long way from the game-winning catch by Jake Belt.  Once Monix threw the final pass, everybody at the line of scrimmage was gazing towards the dark northeast corner of the field.

"I was just thinking, 'Just don't let it be intercepted.  We'll go on fourth down or something.'  But then I saw Jake's hands go up and I'm thinking, 'He makes a lot of catches like that. I know he's got two guys on him but he can catch.'  I can't believe he caught that ball, but THAT was awesome."

Lowell has reached a level of achievement that speaks only to the record books.  The 2008 Devils are the first Lowell team to go 13-0 and the first NW Indiana team to go 13-0 since Portage was 13-0 in 1994.  No Lake County team has been 14-0 in 21 years since Hobart won the 1987 state title.  No Northwest Indiana team has ever been 15-0.

"You want to do something that's never been done," said Kennedy.  "13-0.  Nobody here has ever done that before."

But the Devils might want to try scoring first.  In all four post-season games so far, the opposition has scored the first touchdown.  It's very exciting for outsiders who are watching, but I don't think the Lowell coaching staff appreciates the entertainment value.

"We don't try to fall behind in every game," said Monix.  "I don't know why that happens.  It's sad to say we need a wake up call.  I guess, once we get behind, it wakes us up.  Defense did a heckuva job tonight.  We can't ask for a better job.  We just do what we've got to do."

Some of the Lowell seniors did not realize that they had played their final home game.  When Dwenger defeated Delta, that guaranteed that Lowell would travel to Fort Wayne for the semistate championship game if they won over Griffith.

"This is our last game here?" asked Monix, standing in the Red Devil mud after Lowell's school record 13th win in a row.  "That was my last pass here?  I didn't really think about that.  To end like that.  Against that good a team.  It's unreal."


REGIONAL NOTES:  Halfback Robby Kimes ran for 106 yards and three touchdowns as superpower Bishop Dwenger advanced to the 4A Northern Semistate with a 49-20 win over Delta (13-1) in Muncie.  The Saints led 21-0 in the first quarter on the road and improved to 13-0 for the second consecutive season.  The Summit Athletic Conference champions did not punt until the fourth quarter and they grounded the air attack of the Delta Eagles, who averaged 47 points a game over the first 12 weeks.

Dwenger, which has won a state record 15 regional titles (including the last three in a row), is 48-5 in the last four seasons, including the 10-7 4A Northern Semistate loss at Lowell last November.

Lowell's Kurt Monix thought he might have lost the game for his team, throwing three pass interceptions in the first three quarters.  One was tipped and Griffith made spectacular plays on two of them.

"Fortunately we had one more at the end, noted Monix.  "Like coach says, the vise gets tight the further you go.  It's not an excuse," said Monix of the muddy conditions. "The QB has to do his responsibilities no matter what the conditions are.  Those interceptions.  They can't happen.  You only get so many opportunities."

Belt caught four passes for 65 yards, giving him 21 receptions for 468 yards (22.2 per catch) in 12 games.  Monix says those numbers do not reflect his ability.

"We don't throw the ball a lot, said the Lowell QB.  "If he played for a passing offense, he'd have as many yards as (Kevin) Piet does at Valparaiso.  We all know he can make plays.  He's an athlete.  He's one of the standout sprinters on the track team.  We know he can make plays."

Griffith coach Russ Radtke thought his team played Lowell even.

"You play your hearts out and do your best," he said.  "One team's going to win and one team's going to lose.  I thought we tried everything we could.  I thought we played well defensively.  We made them throw the ball, but they got some big pass completions.  Backs out of the backfield.  They nickel and dimed us.  Then they hit that bomb on the last play of the game.  I have no answer for that.  You see it over and over again.  It happens."

Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy said that the Red Devils' game at Bishop Dwenger would probably be played on Saturday, possibly in the daylight late in the afternoon.  Kennedy does not like to play regular season games on Saturday, but since the state championship (the next week) would also be Saturday, it won't really hurt the Devils.  The coach also said the Red Devil fans need the game to be on Saturday.

"We (players and coaches) could get out of school early and play Friday but the people who have followed us all year can't do that," he explained.  "We lose an hour going (through time zones) there.  For our fans, we need to play on Saturday."

Lowell's Brandon Grubbe watched the seniors celebrate on the field long after the game ended.  The junior running back, who has gained 1,600 yards in back to back seasons, wants to  have a big game against Dwenger because he very much wants to return to the state finals so he can actually play this time.  Grubbe broke his arm in the first five minutes of last year's state championship game and Lowell lost 32-13.  He logically understands that the loss and the injury were not his fault, but he still feels more of a need to return than just to play.

"I think I let the team down," he said.  "I know I didn't try to get hurt.  But I just think I owe it to these seniors to get back there and get it done this time.  I can't help but feel I let everybody down."

The 19-13 Lowell victory was very similar in scoring sequence to the 20-13 Lowell 4A regional championship win at Griffith in November of 2007.  Griffith also jumped to a 7-0 lead in that game and missed an extra point after the score was tied 13-13.  This could easily be the final time Lowell and Griffith meet for the regional championship.  All football sectionals will be realigned after this season by enrollment and Griffith is expected to drop back to Class 3A.

This was an unusually cleanly played game for a regional final with scuffles on the field, no debates with officials and only five penalties combined by both teams.

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Revised: November 18, 2008 .