Indians set to compete for Region 6-4A crown

Woodrow Lowe Jr. had just finished his postgame speech with his team after their 41-33 win at South Gibson last Friday night, and he was speaking to a couple other people when two of his players came up to him, bear hugged him and refused to let him go.

A few seconds later, the reason for the aggressive affection became clear as two more players came with what was remaining in the ice cooler.

Lowe was able to get out of the grasp of his players at the last second as they tried to dodge being doused with icy water themselves in the cool fall air. But the water partially got him.

The Indians hadn't won a championship, but they had done something important.

"Last year our main goal was to compete better than the team did the year before, and then after that, if we could make the playoffs, we wanted to do that too," Lowe said. "This year, our primary goal was to host a playoff game, and if we could do that, try to go ahead and win the region championship too."

One goal has been accomplished. The other can be this week.

In two years, the North Side football program has risen from the depths of a 1-8 season in 2022 in which all but two of their losses were by between 14 and 46 points and their one win was over winless Liberty to their current situation, which is they know they will host a team from Region 5 for the first round of the playoffs and if they win at Chester County on Friday, they'll be the Region 6-4A champions.

The win at South Gibson was memorable. The Indians spent much of the third and fourth quarters down by two possessions, trading scores with the Hornets as neither defense could get a stop consistently.

Then in the final five minutes, North Side came up with a fumble recovery for a turnover with South Gibson leading 33-27. North Side scored to tie the game up, but the kick to take the lead failed, leaving the game tied with about four minutes to go.

Then with South Gibson driving the field after North Side tried an onside kick that went out of bounds, Davien Caruthers came up with an interception for North Side that he brought out of the endzone and got to between the North Side 10- and 15-yard line. They had a little more than two minutes to score to take the lead.

They only needed a little more than one minute as quarterback Henry Schiebout ran it in on a quarterback keeper from five yards out, set up by a long reception by Korliss Hudson to get them within striking range.

The Indians went for two to assure themselves of overtime in a worst-case scenario if South Gibson were to score in the final 50 seconds of the game.

But South Gibson didn't score. The Hornets weren't able to manage a first down as they had to march 70 yards for the score and had no timeouts remaining.

After the game, Lowe was asked if the 2023 game between the Indians and Chester County might be used early in the week as motivation for his team.

"I think so," Lowe said. "Because last year they had nothing to lose because they were already eliminated from the playoffs, and they came to our house and ruined the end of the regular season for us.

"We have a chance this week to go to their place and win a championship. But first, everybody's got to do their job to win the game, so that will be the focus and then hopefully celebrate the championship after the game."

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news