Seneca football falls to Reed-Custer on Homecoming

SENECA — For most of the first three quarters of Seneca's Homecoming football game against Reed-Custer on Saturday, the Fighting Irish were in control.

Seneca took an 8-0 lead into halftime and led 8-7 midway through the third. The Irish's Alec Robinson recovered a Reed-Custer fumble at the Comets' 43, and Seneca drove 43 yards in five plays, the last being a 14-yard touchdown pass from Hunter Greve to Logan Bruss, to take a 14-7 lead with 1:16 left in the third quarter.

Although it appeared that Seneca had seized the momentum in the game, Reed-Custer's Russell Page did not agree.

Page returned the ensuing kickoff 78 yards for a touchdown and then, on the second play of the fourth quarter, he caught an 83-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Josh Loomis to give the Comets a 21-14 lead and put the momentum on the Comets' side. Ryan Shephard later added a 15-yard touchdown run and Reed-Custer came away with a 28-14 victory.

"That kick return was huge," Seneca coach Ted O'Boyle said after his team fell to 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the Interstate Eight Small. "But another big play happened right before that. We didn't convert a two-point conversion and that would have put us up, 16-7 and we would have still been ahead two scores. Maybe things play out differently if that happened."

Seneca saw the return of Hunter Greve, who had not played on offense after suffering a broken hand in the preseason. He rotated with Logan Bruss and Ken Sangston at quarterback and had a part in both Fighting Irish touchdowns.

After Bruss got the Irish to the Reed-Custer 10-yard line with a 50-yard run, Greve entered at quarterback and ran 10 yards around the right end for the Irish's first touchdown. Bruss completed a two-point conversion pass to Cody Altman to give Seneca an 8-0 lead with 8.7 seconds left in the first quarter.

"This was Hunter's first offensive snaps of the year," O'Boyle said. "It was nice to have him back in there in certain packages. I thought he did a nice job, and Logan Bruss did a good job, too.

"We just had to finish off a couple of drives that we didn't. We kind of left the door open for Reed-Custer and you have to give credit to them. [Reed-Custer] Coach [Mark] Wolf does a great job with them and there is no quit in their kids. They kept coming at us."

A.J. Cherry scored on a 16-yard touchdown run for Reed-Custer to pull the Comets to within 8-7 with 6:37 to play in the third quarter. The Comets then forced a Seneca punt, but Robinson came up with the fumble recovery on the next drive, setting up Greve's touchdown pass to Bruss, who finished with a team-high 94 rushing yards and completed 3 of 9 passes for 34 yards.

After that, though, it was all Comets as they spoiled the Irish's Homecoming.

Seneca finishes the season with games against Peotone, Herscher and Sandwich, needing to win two of those three to become playoff eligible.

"Our schedule is a bear at the end, and we knew that coming into the season," O'Boyle said. "This was a huge game for us. Now, we will have a good test of character for our team. We have to put this one behind us and see how bad we want to fight the rest of the year."