‘Bully ball’ by Bulldogs
Tiawhan and Johnson carry Crown Point on shoulders in first win vs. Merrillville since 2018
Crown Point’s Elijah Tiawhan had an ice pack on his lower right leg.
The senior running back didn’t play the final 6:25 of the Bulldogs’ Duneland Athletic Conference opener at Merrillville on Friday night.
But by then, Tiawhan had done plenty of damage.
“Coach called it ‘bully ball,’ ” he said. “Old-fashioned Crown Point bully ball.”
Tiawhan ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns on 29 carries as the Bulldogs downed the Pirates 48-40.
Senior quarterback JJ Johnson was the only player to touch the ball for Crown Point after Tiawhan’s departure, and those two were the only players to have carries for the Bulldogs in the game. Johnson finished with 174 yards and three TDs on 33 carries and completed 5 of 11 passes for 89 yards and two TDs, both to Seamus Malaski.
Crown Point (3-0, 1-0), ranked No. 15 in Class 6A in the poll by Associated Press but unranked in the state coaches poll, took control in the second half with a punishing running attack after Merrillville (2-1, 0-1), ranked No. 1 in both Class 5A polls, led 34-21 at halftime.
“Basically we needed to be tougher than them to win,” Johnson said. “They’re faster than us, everyone knows that, at every single position most likely. We needed to beat them with what we had: size and strength.”
Crown Point, which beat defending Class 2A state champion Andrean one week earlier, ended a six-game losing streak in the series against Merrillville, including a sectional game in each of the past three seasons, with the Bulldogs’ last win coming in a 2018 sectional final. They had lost seven straight regular-season games to the Pirates, last winning in 2014.
“We’re all excited,” Tiawhan said. “We’re all very happy. We all knew we could do it.”
Merrillville last lost a conference game on Oct. 4, 2019, at Valparaiso.
“I see this as a learning experience . ... They’re a good team,” Merrillville coach Brad Seiss said. “We have to learn from it and move on and get better.
“They stayed true to themselves. They make no ifs, ands or buts about wanting to run the ball, and they did. … We had to stop it.”
Crown Point started the second half with a long drive, capped by Tiawhan’s 2-yard TD run with 6:09 left in the third quarter to make it 34-28.
After Jaylynn Kelley’s interception with 4:30 left in the third, Tiawhan added a 4-yard TD run with 31.8 seconds to go to give Crown Point the lead at 35-34.
On a drive sustained by a Merrillville encroachment penalty on fourth-and-4 from Crown Point’s 46, Johnson scored
on a 2-yard run with 3:23 left in the game. After the Bulldogs stopped the Pirates on fourth down to take over at Merrillville’s 28 with 2:28 left, Johnson added a 9-yard TD to make it 48-34 with 1:04 left.
Merrillville scored on a 24-yard TD pass from Jaylen Thomas to John Peters with 17.3 seconds left, but the onside kick went out of bounds, clinching a breakthrough win for Crown Point in Craig Buzea’s second season as coach.
“We believed,” Johnson said. “Coach said all week, ‘All we got is all we need.’ It feels like a brotherhood.”
Merrillville senior Justin Marshall ran for 168 yards and two TDs, including an 80-yarder, on 14 carries. Trey Stephens added 46 yards and a TD on nine carries.
Thomas completed 16 of 25 passes for 214 yards and three TDs, including the one to Peters, who had eight catches for 85 yards. Marshall had a 29-yard TD catch, and Phillip Roche had a 34-yarder. Both Roche and Marshall recovered a fumble, with Marshall’s coming on a muffed punt.
The Pirates had grabbed a 12-0 lead midway through the first quarter, marching for a TD on the opening possession and turning Roche’s recovery into another score.
“Everyone probably thought, ‘Oh no, oh crap,’ ” Johnson said. “But our guys stayed locked in.
“Our big boys keep fighting. Those guys have a gas tank. … This group came together. It’s crazy what happened.”