Tipp falls in second round of 7-on-7 Finals

With June behind them, the Tippecanoe football team now prepares for a busy month of July, with youth camps and other activities set to begin next week. To prepare for that, the Red Devils competed in two 7-on-7 competitions last week, including a trip to the state finals tournament in Columbus.

The Red Devils competed in the larger school division after qualifying in the regional tournament the previous week. Tipp opened their play against Hilliard Darby in the opening round and earned a triple-overtime victory to get a rematch against Lakota East in the Elite Eight. At regionals, Lakota East cruised to an easy win over Tipp, but the Red Devils came back to battle the Thunderhawks much closer last week. Tipp led until late, Lakota East then scored and sent the game into overtime where the Red Devils threw an interception to secure a win for East. “We went over there with the philosophy that we were going to win it,” Tipp coach Matt Burgbacher said. “It was one-and-done, and we jumped out to a 14-0 lead over Darby and held the lead until the final play of regulation.”

“Then we played Lakota East and they beat us by 20-some points (last) week, but in the finals we jumped out to a 14-0 lead again, but they fought back and tied the game. We had a chance to win the game at the end. They had the ball first in overtime, and we stopped them, then we threw an interception that ended the game.” “For me, it was about the improvement that we made from last week to this week. We got so much better. We lost some key players from last year and guys were still getting a feel of things.”

Burgbacher stated that Larkin Thomas made some really great throws and Tipp caught the ball better between Grant Titley, Cade Havill, Aaron Hart, Will Strong and Max Deckard. “Also, defensively we played great,” Thomas said. “We were able to force Lakota East to do things they were not used to doing.”

*On Tuesday, Tipp hosted Anna in another 7-on-7 at the city park, a program that made a nice tournament run last year. “Anna is very disciplined and they have some talent,” Burgbacher said. “They run a different defense that we run or that we normally see, and we got everybody a lot of reps.”

“We got all of our younger guys reps. The biggest difference with our sophomore and freshman is that those guys are a little bit ahead of Anna. They are ahead of the curve due to the number of reps they have gotten.”