By RICH TORRES
NOBLESVILLE – For a second straight week, the Class 6A Noblesville Millers had a top-10 team on the ropes. Unfortunately, once again, they couldn’t find enough points to put them away.
After losing a 7-0 first-quarter lead against 6A No. 2 Brownsburg last weekend, the Millers built another early 7-0 margin against 6A No. 8 Avon on Friday night before going scoreless in the second half to lose 14-7.
“It’s interesting. This team beat us last year by 50 points. They destroyed us, and we’re playing with the best teams in the state of Indiana,” Noblesville head coach Justin Roden said. “We’re playing with them, but we’re not finishing.”
The Millers offense started off promising with a two-play scoring drive in the first quarter that was setup by the defense’s first of three fumble recoveries. However, a rhythm was never found as Noblesville didn’t cross the 50-yard line again until its final drive in the fourth quarter.
The defense did its part by holding the Orioles to a pair of touchdowns and below its points per game allowed average of 15.1. Avon was scoring 31.4 points a game, but without four-star Indiana University recruit Sampson James at running back, who was resting a nagging injury, the Orioles’ offense stalled.
On 14 possessions, the Orioles were limited to two successful drives while punting five times and turning the ball over four times with three fumbles.
Skylar Tolliver scooped up a fumble on second-and-7 in the first quarter to put the Millers in the red zone at Avon’s 14, which quarterback Grant Gremel punctuated with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Zach Gruver.
Up 7-0, the Millers tried to push the issue with second place in the Hoosier Crossroads Conference on the line, but a fake-punt reverse backfired for negative 17 yards late in the first quarter.
The play handed the ball over to Avon at the Millers 29. Four snaps later the Orioles (7-2, 5-2 HCC) tied the game 7-7 with a second-quarter touchdown run by quarterback Henry Hesson.
Hesson rushed for 60 yards on 21 carries and passed for 187 yards on 13 of 29 completions with a game-winning touchdown on Avon’s final drive in the fourth quarter.
“My call on the reverse was a bad call at midfield,” Roden said. “It was bad call, but I was trying to be aggressive. We’re struggling so badly offensively, I wanted to take a chance on special teams, hoping that we can get that spark and make something happen.”
Noblesville produced 17 yards from scrimmage compared to Avon’s 296, but the defense made the Orioles work.
In the third quarter, Avon reached the Millers 38, but a fumble recovery by Zac Tuinei halted the potential scoring drive. Gruver recovered another fumble early in the fourth quarter to give the Millers first-and-10 from their own 30, but Noblesville was forced to punt. The Millers punted 11 times in the game.
Key sacks stymied the Orioles, including one by Kenja Jenkins and another by Eddie Dziennik. Gruver added a would-be interception in the fourth quarter against Hesson on third-and-10 from Avon’s 42, but a defensive holding call supplied an Orioles’ first down.
The field-goal blocking team pressured Avon’s placekicker Nick Bandy into missing three attempts. A bad snap erased a 28-yard try and Bandy went wide on a 38-yarder after an Avon five-minute, 17-second drive in the third quarter.
A tipped field goal in the fourth quarter stopped another long Avon drive that spanned 50 yards and chewed up 3:44 off the clock.
The Millers’ defense appeared to put the game on its shoulders in the second half when Jenkins picked off Hesson on second-and-10 from Avon’s 38. Jenkins grabbed the pass in stride and ran back 35 yards for a touchdown, but the officials called Noblesville for an illegal block in the back.
“The referring was very upsetting to me personally. I thought the penalty they called on the interception for a touchdown was a huge play in the game,” Roden said. “The interception late in the game, again, was a big call.
“Whether they’re right or wrong, you don’t want referees to be a factor in the game, and it’s not why we lost, but I felt tonight they were a major factor.”
The Millers defense refused to break until Hesson and Wallace Stovall began to connect in the second half. With only 10 yards passing in the first two quarters, Hesson completed 12 of 22 passes down the stretch, including six completions to Stovall.
The duo hooked up with three pitch-and-catches on Avon’s final possession. The last one traveled 7 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with 49.7 second remaining.
The Millers marched four yards on four plays in the final minute behind Gremel’s longest pass of the night at 34 yards to Jack Knight, but a sack by Caden Hubner for a 23-yard loss ran off the clock.
Gremel finished with 66 yards passing on 7 of 21 completions, but the running game had negative 49 yards on 30 carries.
“More than anything else, our kids need to learn the next two weeks, if we’re going to find a way to win, then we can do something special,” Roden said. “We’re in the games. Losing 14-7 to Avon isn’t anything you can hang your head on, but at the same time I don’t want to lose close. I’d rather get blown out.”
The Millers (4-5, 5-2 HCC) have lost two consecutive games by 10 points or less and are averaging 10.0 points scored per game.
“We are improving. The program went 1-9 last year to now 4-5. We’re really battling,” Roden said. “We can easily be on the other end. We could be 6-3. We could be 7-2. I’d love to hit the reset button on some of those early-season games when we were figuring some stuff out.”
Noblesville is off next week before opening Sectional 4 at Lafayette Jeff (8-1) on Oct. 26.
Noblesville’s Kenja Jenkins (42) and Dalton Davis (56) make a tackle during the Millers’ game with Avon Friday at Beaver Materials Field. Noblesville gave the Orioles a tough test before falling 14-7. (Kent Graham)
Noblesville’s Zac Tuinei runs the ball during the Millers’ game with Avon. (Kent Graham)