By FRED KRONER
It was a night for imagination and remembering.
It was a night for action and drama, pomp and pageantry.
It was a night for reunions and revelry.
It was Homecoming 2025 – Mahomet-Seymour-style –and it was a classic example of going to a ball game and an event breaks out.
It surpassed expectations and continued to raise the bar.
More than a hundred young grade schoolers took to Frank Dutton Field on Friday (Sept. 19) for a pre-game dance routine that included Bulldog cheerleaders in front of an appreciative audience.
The festivities continued with the introductions of the eighth-annual Mahomet-Seymour Schools Foundation Hall of Fame class, raising the number enshrined to 39.
The inductees were presented alphabetically, starting with Kyle Kimme (1997). He was followed by the family of the late Doug Parrett (1969), then Wendy Wagner Pierce (2001) and Joe Sapp (2003).
As if by cue, or perhaps divine intervention, a partial rainbow appeared in the eastern sky as Susie Parrett stood on the all-weather track, ready to accept the plaque on behalf of her late husband, proving that fitting moments such as this don’t just appear in movie scripts.
The football game itself was the Apollo Conference opener for Mahomet-Seymour, which hasn’t lost a conference contest in 54 months since 2021.
Both the Bulldogs and visiting Taylorville entered the contest with 1-2 season records.
Both schools scored touchdowns on their first possessions.
Taylorville marched 55 yards in six plays, capped by a 42-yard scoring run with 9 minutes and 23 seconds left in the opening quarter.
M-S engineered an 80-yard scoring drive following Wade Manuel’s 23-yard kickoff return. A penalty, however, required the Bulldogs to take over on the 20-yard line.
A 36-yard pass from from senior quarterback Ryan Pruitt to senior receiver Owen Seymour moved M-S into Taylorville territory.
On a third down-and-2 play, Manuel raced 29 yards to the end zone.
The first of seven consecutive extra point placements by senior Jackson Davis lifted the Bulldogs into a 7-6 lead.
The give-and-take continued throughout the first two 12-minute periods.
Taylorville had some good plays, such as a 25-yard TD strike on a fourth-and-2 situation.
M-S also produced some good plays, such as a 4-yard run by junior Cody Moen on a fourth-and-3 call as well as a 20-yard pass play from Pruitt to senior Cade Ashby, which resulted in a score.
A halftime statistical review illustrated the closeness of the game.
The teams were tied, 14-14.
Each school had produced seven first downs.
Taylorville had netted 181 yards at the break. M-S’ offensive totals revealed 180 yards.
The award-winning M-S band, under the leadership of retiring director Michael Stevens, entertained the audience, which was near-capacity on the M-S side.
Meanwhile, the Bulldog locker room was not a place of fun and frivolity. M-S head coach Jon Adkins was in no mood to highlight any of the few positives he saw on the field of play.
“I challenged our kids,” Adkins said, without divulging all of the exact wording that he offered the team. “I told them, ‘Don’t fall into the trap. Don’t think you’re all high-and-mighty.’
“This is a trap game (situated between a 26-point road win the previous week at seventh-ranked Sycamore and a week before a home game against state-ranked rival Mount Zion). When you throw in homecoming distractions, it’s tough for young kids to embrace.
“I was incredibly pleased and proud of the way they responded.”
Though the players –from both schools—were the same ones who played in the first half, the M-S squad looked like a collection of all-star new recruits after the intermission.
In a 6-minute and 20-second stretch of the third stanza, the Bulldogs scored four touchdowns, while defensively allowing no points and just one first down.
With 2:11 left in the quarter, M-S had built an insurmountable 42-14 lead.
In that timeframe, the Bulldog offense produced 12 first downs and 182 total yards.
It started with Manuel racing 34 yards with the second-half kickoff and was—eventually—followed by two short scoring runs by Ashby, a 5-yard romp to the end zone by Moen and a 9-yard scoring run by Pruitt on a broken play.
Unlike recent M-S quarterbacks, who earned their varsity starting roles as underclassmen, Pruitt was an understudy until 2025, which he is making a productive one.
He has thrown TD passes in three consecutive games while generating 549 yards through the air this season. In the past two weeks, Pruitt has completed 78.1 percent of his passes (25 of 32).
“He’s a smart kid who waited his turn,” Adkins said. “He keeps growing up and I’m proud of his growth in leadership.
“He’s directing traffic and managing the game. When there is miscommunication, Ryan makes the right decision. The fumbled snap was supposed to be a pitch, but he kept it (and ran 9 yards for a TD).”
The Bulldog second half resulted in TDs the first five times the team had the ball. The final score was Ashby’s fourth TD of the game, on a 2-yard run with 9:53 remaining, creating a 49-21 M-S lead.
For the season, Ashby has a team-best seven TDs.
The Bulldogs had one final possession in the game and, playing mostly backups, added two more first downs and 41 additional yards of offense to their game total of 471 before finally giving up the ball on downs 34.5 seconds before the final horn.
“The kids accepted the challenge,” Adkins said. “I’m incredibly blessed with the way they responded. It was a tale of two halves.
“We know there are things to clean up, but we got homecoming out of the way. We’ve been watching Mount Zion on film, and we know we’ll have our hands full.
“They’re loaded, and have more of a complete team this year.”
The kickoff between M-S (2-2) and fourth-ranked Mount Zion 3-1) is set for 7 p.m. on Friday (Sept. 26) at Frank Dutton Field.
The Bulldogs have won 24 Apollo Conference games in a row since a 44-34 loss to No. 10-ranked Mount Zion on March 26, 2021. That was the school year where COVID-19 forced football to play an abbreviated (six-game) spring schedule.
Adkins said the status of injured M-S sophomore Marco Casillas, who rushed for 103 yards on 20 carries at Sycamore before leaving with an injury, is “day-to-day.” Casillas did not play against Taylorville.
