'He means a lot to this team': Ben Henderson leads Harrison football past Lafayette Jeff

LAFAYETTE - Staring directly at the giant Scheumann Stadium scoreboard that showed a tie game and 8:39 to go, Ben Henderson had two missions.

Get in the end zone.

And take as much time as possible to do so.

Six minutes and 29 seconds later, missions accomplished.

Henderson plunged into the end zone for his fourth touchdown of the night with 2:10 remaining, the winning score in Class 5A No. 8 Harrison's 34-27 victory over Lafayette Jeff.

"Every time I ran the ball on that drive, I took a dive," said Henderson, who carried eight times for 49 yards on Harrison's game-winning 11-play drive. "Our O-line was blocking amazing."

It was a masterful drive during a masterful night for Harrison's offense, led by Henderson, who had 130 yards on 24 carries and also was 9 of 11 passing for 124 yards.

Harrison's defense needed just one stop after a kickoff took a kind hop and forced the Bronchos to have to go 92 yards in 2:06 in an attempt to tie the game.

"The way Ben led that last drive, it was beautiful," senior cornerback Sammy Hallada said. "It took so much time off the clock. He made our job easy. All we had to do was get one stop."

Three plays later, the Raiders did.

Hallada intercepted a deep pass by Ethan Smith to secure a Harrison victory over Lafayette Jeff for the second year in a row and put the Raiders in the driver's seat to repeat as North Central Conference champions.

"We knew it was back and forth. I saw that ball up in the air and I didn’t care who was around me," Hallada said. "I just went up and got it. I knew I had to get the ball back in my offense’s hands."

Harrison's final scoring drive put the Bronchos in a precarious position.

Lafayette Jeff struggled in the passing game, but gashed the Raiders with its rushing attack.

Glenn Patterson rushed for 183 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Smith and Siah Powers also rushed for scores on a night the Bronchos averaged 6.5 yards per carry.

But with just one timeout and needing 92 yards, the Bronchos felt they needed to hit a big play that ended up being the game's only turnover.

"They got the ball back with about two minutes left," Harrison coach Terry Peebles said. "If there’s four minutes left, we’re probably playing in overtime right now. They are that good offensively. Their backs are unbelievable."

But ...

Lafayette Jeff couldn't exactly stop the Raiders either, who didn't punt and didn't turn the ball over.

"They blocked well and this game boils down to blocking and tackling and they did it better than us," Lafayette Jeff coach Pat Shanley said. "They had fewer penalties and fewer mistakes and they blocked and tackled better than we did."

The offensive production came across the board, from the blocking of the offensive line to the running of Henderson, Carter Knoy and Ethan Popp to a big 29-yard reception by Jake Walters, a 15-yard reception on a third-and-13 by Brendan Gothrup, a 38-yard gain on a fourth-and-1 shovel pass to Carter McDonald or Alex Stene's field goals from 25 and 37 yards.

"Everybody played really well," Peebles said. "There's not one kid on this team that I am not proud of right now."

Harrison extended its North Central Conference winning streak to 12 games, the most recent loss coming 76-55 to Lafayette Jeff on Sept. 11, 2020.

It is Lafayette Jeff's second NCC loss in its last 40 conference games, coming to Harrison in each of the last two seasons.

The Bronchos scored in the final minute of the first half and received the second half kickoff, but couldn't turn the momentum, going three-and-out.

"We have to come out at half. You think we have the momentum and they get a stop," Shanley said. "We punt it to them and they go right down the field and score. It was the story of the night. In all three phases, we were off. We didn’t execute at the level it takes to win a conference championship. They deserved it."

The difference Friday night was one team had Henderson and the other didn't. On Jeff's final possession, the Raiders put him on defense in an attempt to get their best 11 players on the field. Henderson was an all-state free safety last season as a junior.

"I don’t know what his stats are but he’s got 10 touchdowns in the last two weeks," Peebles said after Friday's victory. "He is a great kid. He is a great student. He is a great player. He is a great competitor. A great leader. You can put any superlative you want after that and that is what Ben Henderson is. He means a lot to this team."

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.

HARRISON 34, LAFAYETTE JEFF 27

HAR 3 10 7 14

LJ 0 13 7 7

First quarter

H - Alex Stene 25 FG

Second quarter

H - Ben Henderson 1 run (Stene kick)

H - Stene 37 FG

LJ - Glenn Patterson 1 run (kick blocked)

Third quarter

H - Henderson 6 run (Stene kick)

LJ - Patterson 3 run (Garrido kick)

Fourth quarter

H - Henderson 1 run (Stene kick)

LJ - Siah Powers 4 run (Garrido kick)

H - Henderson 1 run (Stene kick)

Individual statistics

Rushing - Harrison, Ben Henderson 24-130, Carter Knoy 10-55, Ethan Popp 7-62, Chris Ferguson 1-3; Lafayette Jeff, Glenn Patterson 24-183, Siah Powers 13-63, Ethan Smith 4-19.

Passing - Harrison, Henderson 9-11-0 124; Lafayette Jeff, Smith 6-9-1 28.

Receiving - Harrison, Knoy 2-11, Carter McDonald 5-69, Jake Walters 1-29, Brendan Gothrup 1-15; Lafayette Jeff, Asa Koeppen 3-6, Patterson 1-2, Abram Ritchie 1-13, Brandon Jackson 1-7.

Harrison is 5-1 (4-0 North Central Conference), Lafayette Jeff is 4-2 (3-1).

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Indiana high school football: Harrison tops Lafayette Jeff in Week 6