BOURBON — Triton had never once trailed during a dominant 3-0 start to the season, and before his team’s non-conference contest with Bremen, head coach Ron Brown found himself wondering out loud how the Trojans might respond if they found themselves in that situation come Friday night.

Well, the Trojans did battle for a half, but after that, the answer to Brown’s question was one that didn’t please him much.

Trailing by a slim 14-10 margin at halftime, Triton never really left the locker room in the second half, and the visiting Lions pretty much had their way with their hosts over the remaining two frames, handing them their first loss of the year in a disappointing 35-10 outcome in Bourbon.

“We’ve never trailed, and I was actually talking to our coaches about that earlier in the day. I said ‘I wonder how we’re going to react if we end up trailing,’ and well, there we go. I guess we found out,” said Brown, whose team had outscored its first three opponents by a combined 142-27 margin on the way to the program’s best start since 2008 headed into Friday’s game.

“I think we just didn’t answer the ball. The whole year the thing I was worried about was how we would respond to adversity, and obviously we didn’t respond very well. To me, that says that all of our kids aren’t mentally there yet, and that’s something that we have to continue to work on. You can only encourage so much, but if they can’t take it into their own head and conceptualize that, then you’re going to have a tough time.”

It was certainly a rough second half for Triton opposite Bremen.

The Trojans (3-1) went back and forth with the Lions (2-2) over the first two quarters, recording 164 net offensive yards before the intermission, but they scuffled to just 39 yards in the second half. Bremen drove the ball 51 yards on the opening possession of the third period to push its advantage to 21-10 on a 15-yard run by quarterback Ryan Caldwell at the 7:34 stop of the clock and Justin Zumbrun’s third extra-point kick in Bourbon, and the Lions tacked on a pair of TDs in the fourth quarter on the way to the win, which snapped a two-game skid by Bremen.

“We were able to execute our adjustments, what we wanted, at halftime and really just kind of control the clock in the second half,” said Bremen coach Jordan Leeper. “That was our challenge to the kids was to control the clock and kind of take their good offense off the field.”

Say this for Triton, at least: The Trojans weren’t playing for second place Friday night.

The home team opened the second half with an onside kick attempt, but the ball was smothered by a Triton player before it made it 10 yards downfield and Bremen capitalized on the short field with its 51-yard TD drive early in the third.

The gamble may have gone the wrong way for Triton, but Leeper was impressed by the aggressive play calling.

“It’s a good game plan, you know?” he said. “They get the ball to start, and they go for the onside kick. If you get it you’re golden, and if not you give us good field position. It was a matter of about a half a yard, and that kid could’ve had it.”

Later, with Triton trailing 28-10 and with just 4:19 left to play, the Trojans went for it on fourth and 10 at their own 38. But quarterback Bo Snyder’s pass fell incomplete, and the Lions again punished Triton for the gambit, marching it into the end zone with a seven-play drive capped off by Briley Leeper’s 8-yard run around the left side to bring the score to its final margin with only 57 seconds on the clock. That fourth down conversion attempt was the Trojans’ second of the night after an 8-yard run by Ethan Berry at the 5:46 mark of the second stanza extended a Triton drive and gave the home team its second score of the night — a 23-yard field goal by Brandon Lenker with 1:55 remaining in the first half.

After weathering back-to-back, two-win seasons as head coach of the Trojans, Brown says he’s trying to change the mentality surrounding the program.

“Here’s my philosophy: For the longest time around here we’ve had a loser mentality, and I’m not willing to accept that. We’re going to go for the win or go for the score no matter what,” he said.
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“I think if you’re a math guy and you want to look at some statistics, it tells you that if you possess the ball more, you’re probably going to have a greater opportunity to win. My thinking was why not go for it because if the defense goes out they’re supposed to play defense. What’s the difference if it’s 20 yards out or if it’s on the other 20? I’m going to do that. I’m not going to just pack it up, and say ‘Big brother, please push us around.’ I’m kind of sick of that, and I hope some other people are too.”

It turns out the Lions’ idea was also to out-possess their opponents, and two lost Triton fumbles helped their cause, although they were never able to capitalize with a score on either turnover by Triton. Bremen had a turnover of its own in Bourbon when Max Slusser picked off a would-be Caldwell TD pass to Leeper in the end zone and returned it to the 8-yard line to give the Trojans new life late in the third, but the ensuing drive stalled on Triton’s 27.

That one-turnover performance by the Lions represented a big improvement from last week’s 21-6 loss to John Glenn, in which Bremen coughed the ball up five times.

“Taking care of the football is the most important thing in this game. If you can’t do it, you end up like we were last week — very dejected, very frustrated,” said Jordan Leeper. “And when you’re able to get more possessions you can do more things with the ball, and our offense answered and our run game was pretty good tonight.”

Bremen dominated on the ground with 270 rushing yards to Triton’s 47. Nathan Mullen led the Lions with 117 yards in 22 carries, Caldwell rushed for 56 yards in six carries, Jacob Wunder ran the ball seven times for 34 yards, and Briley Leeper had a breakout night on offense with 68 yards and two TDs in nine rushes.

“When you’ve got two guys like Jake Wunder and Nathan Mullen to run the football and then bring in somebody like Briley Leeper — he’s a quick kid, he’s fast, he hits the hole hard, and it’s a change of pace, definitely, from what they’ve seen. He’s a different runner than the other two, and he was a big boost in the second half. He allowed us to get Wunder off the field a little bit to rest up, and he had a really good game,” said Jordan Leeper.

“He’s maturing. He’s getting better each and every week. He’s playing defense, and that’s where we like him but as a backup running back, he’s definitely doing the job we need.”

Meanwhile, Caldwell threw for 126 yards and two TDs on 5-15-1 passing, and Zumbrun caught a pair of passes for 74 receiving yards and a touchdown, the Lions’ second of the night.

Snyder was 9-for-21 for 156 yards and a TD through the air, while Berry caught two passes for 72 yards, the first a 55-yard catch and carry up the Triton sideline for a score at the 10:12 mark of the second that knotted the score up briefly at 7-7 with Lenker’s PAT. Berry also led his team on the ground with 32 rushing yards in seven touches. Drew Stichter finished with three catches totaling 60 yards for the Trojans, who resume their Hoosier North Athletic Conference schedule at Culver Community next week when the Lions host New Prairie in their return to Northern Indiana Conference play.