MASCOUTAH -- There was a lot of electricity Friday night at Mascoutah, and it didn't come from the storm clouds that rolled through the area. In the end, the Central Cougars, believed to be a year or two away from becoming an elite team, delivered one of the bigger shocks of opening night, a 22-14 victory over the host Indians.
Central erased a 14-12 fourth-quarter deficit with a pair of long touchdown drives, perhaps signaling with their upset victory that the future is now in Breese. The biggest was a 68-yard pass play from one sophomore to another, as Nick Grapperhaus got behind Mascoutah star player Matt Milton and caught a long toss from Brandon Book to the Mascoutah 15, setting up the go-ahead score.
"Anybody in Clinton County knows those two sophomores are going to be able to make plays like that all day long," said Central coach Brian Short. "We've got other good sophomores -- like Nathan Poelker, Gavin Thomas and Andrew Schulte -- so there's going to be a lot of fun with those guys over the next two years."
Central, 4-5 last season and 3-7 the year before, is 1-0 for the first time since 2000, prompting the players to chant "one win in a row" after the game. But the way their thunder-and-lightning attack looked on opening night, the Cougars might need to get used to winning.
Senior back Matt Elliot rushed for 78 yards on 22 carries, and fellow senior Kevin Grayling chipped in 44 on eight carries. When the Cougars needed to move the chains the most -- late in the fourth quarter -- each senior powered the chains forward. Grayling, who led Central in rushing his sophomore season before sitting out last year with a disciplinary issue, scored the touchdown that cut Mascoutah's lead to 14-12 on a 6-yard power run over left tackle with 9:09 left to play, then Elliot sealed the game at the 3:51 mark with a tackle-breaking 7-yard TD run.
Book, whose 6-foot-5 frame has the making of the prototype label once he fills out, completed eight of 13 passes for 169 yards, with a 10-yard scoring pass to Poelker that was delivered on the money while Book was rolling out to the right. Senior Gage Harding was his top target, catching six balls for 91 yards.
Junior Jacob Buehne also was key, as he was in the Mascoutah backfield the entire game. None of his stops was bigger than when he caught Rodney Montgomery for a 3-yard loss, then on the next play sniffed out a direct-snap play to Milton and stopped him for no loss. Those plays led to a three-and-out following Grayling's score, giving the ball back to the Cougars for their six-play, 89-yard drive that gave them their first lead of the game.
"I can't tell you how much I love that kid," Short said of Buehne, a 6-5, 200-pound junior. "That's a big old milk farmboy who loves to play football, and he's got hands like vice grips."
Mascoutah, which went 8-4 last season in reaching the Class 4A quarterfinals, appeared on the way to victory before Grapperhaus made the biggest play of the first half. With 2:01 left to play and the Indians near midfield, Mascoutah quarterback Jacob Gruber threw 20 yards downfield for Milton, who went high for the ball and appeared to have made the catch before Grapperhaus -- all 5-11 and 140 pounds of him -- delivered a huge hit that separated Milton from the ball and left him limping off the field. Milton missed the rest of the first half and didn't return until the 7-minute mark of the third quarter, but he was not the same player.
Milton had three rushes in the first half -- all on direct snaps from the center -- that went for 14, 15 and 28 yards, and his one first-half catch was good for 10 yards. In the second half, his three rushes went for 3, 3 and 0 yards, and his one reception was for a 6-yard loss on a flair pass that didn't fool Grapperhaus or Tyler Voss. Milton, a fleet 6-6, 215-pounder who has committed to the University of Tennessee, blamed himself for the loss, not the injury.
"I just didn't play," he said, adding that he's certain the ankle injury won't sideline him next week. "I put the whole thing on me. I made two mental mistakes on defense. I dropped an interception I should have returned all the way, and I let the guy get behind me on that long play."
Mascoutah coach Scott Battas, in his first year at the helm, also wouldn't point to the injury as key to the outcome.
"I won't make excuses," he said. "We got beat tonight, but obviously with your best player in tape, it's tough. Logan Wagner is the heart and soul of this football team at linebacker, but Milton is what we revolve around on offense, and without him in the second half obviously it was different.
"In the first half we expected him to do things and he did them. In the second half you're hanging on a thread hoping he can make a play. That's my fault, too. I've got to find other ways to get guys the ball. I'll learn from this, we'll learn from this, and we'll be fine."
Montgomery rushed for 86 yards on 14 carries for Mascoutah, including a nifty 32-yard sweep to the right in which he bounced to the sideline and outran a defensive back to the end zone.
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