It took more than 22 hours to complete, but the Butler High School football team finished its first-round playoff game with Lafayette.
After a power outage postponed the game late in the first quarter, the two teams completed the game on Saturday afternoon, with Lafayette pulling away from the Bears, 39-16, at Lafayette High School. The Bears finished their season with a record of 4-7.
“I think our kids played well,” Butler coach Gary Wheeler said. “The younger kids played well. I thought we came together and played a good game today, we just couldn’t pull it out at the end. They kind of wore us down towards the end of the game but our kids kept fighting. We were one or two plays away from tying the game up.”
Once the game resumed at 3:00 p.m. (after the postponement decision came at 8:40 p.m. the night before), the Bears converted a two-point conversion to take an 8-7 lead over Lafayette, one that stayed that way until the 3:22 mark in the second quarter. Kentucky commit Walker Wood took advantage of his speed as he dashed 36 yards to score a touchdown and give Lafayette a 14-8 lead, which held into halftime.
“It was a weird situation,” Wheeler said of the delay. “We were running down the field one moment and then the next the lights go out and you’ve got to come back and play today. But I think our kids handled it well.”
In the second half, the Generals began to pull away. Wood punched in a one-yard touchdown run with three minutes left in the third quarter and then he found Matthew Guilfoil open for a 31-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter. The Generals followed that up by recovering an onside kick and scoring on a five-yard run by Javarius Robinson to make it 33-8.
Blake Showalter completed his second touchdown pass of the game – the first came on Friday evening before the lights went out on an 87-yard touchdown pass to Demontae Crumes – when Showalter found Frank Bently for a 29-yard touchdown.
But the potential comeback was short-lived as Lafayette’s Jordan Thomas iced the game with a 98-yard interception return for a touchdown.
“We just told them that they fought hard today and during the season” Wheeler said of his message to the team following the game. “Even though we only won four games during the season, they fought. We were having at least 49-50 guys at practice, even during the bye week. They bought in and played hard.”
While Butler’s season came to a close in the first round of the playoffs for the second consecutive season, Wheeler said he was excited about the future of the team. The Bears lose 26 seniors, including Showalter, but they bring back the likes of sophomores Crumes, rushing leader Eric Jackson, junior receiving yards leader Frank Bentley and even freshman quarterback prospect Chaz Burks.
“We’ve got a nice young core of kids,” Wheeler said. “Our freshman and sophomores are really good and juniors are really good, so we’ve got a good future ahead of us.”