ST. HENRY – The Versailles football team ended their season with a 38-14 loss to St. Henry Friday night. The Tigers hoped to reverse the outcome of week three, when the Redskins beat them 34-21. The Redskins’ Drew Langenkamp made sure it would not happen. Langenkamp ran for 229 yards, added 39 receiving yards, and scored three touchdowns to pace the Redskins.
Langenkamp took the first play of the game, ran for 68 yards, and put the Redskins up 7-0 with just 21 seconds off the clock. The Tigers answered with a 65-yard drive. Blake Monnin ran it in from the 15-yard line, and the Tigers tied the game.
The Tigers held the Redskins on their next possession and took over at their own 42-yard line. The Tigers drove 58 yards and took a 14-7 lead with 11:45 left in the second quarter. Landyn Knapke would finish the drive with a three-yard touchdown run.
Versailles went scoreless the rest of the game as the Redskin defense held them to 54 yards. The Redskins would score three more times in the first half to take a 24-14 lead into halftime. A 41-yard pass from Landon Schwartz to Will Gerlach tied the game at 14 with 9:19 left in the half.
The Tiger defense held the Redskins to a field goal attempt on their next possession. The kick was good from 30 yards, and the Redskins retook the lead. The Tigers were facing a fourth-and-one at their own 37-yard line. With 2:40 left in the half. Versailles went for it but were short by inches.
St. Henry threw a touchdown pass after Schwartz scrambled, but a blindside block moved the Redskins backward. On third and 27 at the 43-yard line, Schwartz hit Langenkamp for the touchdown, putting the Tigers down 10 with 1:08 left in the half.
The defenses took over in the third quarter with both teams trading punt for most of it. The Redskins would make it 31-14 with 55 seconds left in the third on a Langenkamp 13-yard run. Langenkamp scored on a one-yard run to seal the win.
“We gave up big plays.” Coach Broerman said, “That’s a really good football team. They are big, they are physical. They want to run the ball, and they want to be physical, and they were.”
The Versailles Tigers finished their season with an 8-5 record. They won two playoff games on the road, traveling six hours by bus to Portsmouth and back and three hours to Cincinnati and back.
“It was a great three weeks of extra practice that not everybody gets.” Coach Broerman said, “Three more weeks you get to spend with those seniors.”
The Tigers will use the extra time to keep building for next year.
