Warren Central coach Curtis Brewer didn’t look for any scapegoats. Instead the 30-plus year coaching veteran took Friday night’s stunning 12-10 loss to South Pike on himself.

“There is no one to blame, but Coach Brewer,” he said as his team trotted off the Viking Stadium field. South Pike (1-2) had not scored a point in 10 quarters of football until the Vikings (0-3) gave the Eagles one late in the third quarter.

“I take responsibility for this loss. I didn’t prepare this team properly. As a coaching staff, we need to do a lot of soul-searching. Our team has got to dig down deep and step up to the challenge,” Brewer said. “We’re playing too much as individuals and not as a team. We have a great bunch of kids. But we have to realize we win as a team.”

For starters, the Vikings have to do something about their discipline. WC was penalized 20 times for 173 yards. There were facemask flags, late hits, holding penalties, motion penalties, offsides, intentional grounding and roughing the punter. If there was a rule to be broken, WC got flagged for it.

One sequence of fouls led directly to South Pike getting its first points of the season. Trailing 7-0, the Eagles faced a fourth-and-29 from the WC 35. South Pike coach Randall Huffman had quarterback Tevin Martin do a quick punt. WC could’ve taken the ball at its own 14 with less than a minute left in the third quarter, but the Vikings elected to have South Pike re-kick from the 40 after accepting a 5-yard procedure penalty. WC promptly jumped offsides to give the five yards back. Back with a fourth-and-29 from the 35, South Pike punted again, this time, WC was flagged for roughing the punter, an automatic first down.

With a fresh set of downs, Martin went up the middle for a 20-yard touchdown with 32 seconds left in the quarter.

The Vikings responded with a 45-yard drive that reached the Eagles’ 13. A 21-yard pass to Ben Wau Caples, who WC finally rediscovered in the second half, and a 15-yard facemask on the Eagles, set up Jared Thames’ 30-yard field goal to put WC up 10-6 with 9:49 left in the game.

It took South Pike just over a minute to take the lead. After WC was flagged twice for kicking the ball out of bounds, the Eagles started its go-ahead drive on the 44. Two run plays gained nothing. On third-and-10, Martin threw a deep pass which sophomore receiver Brandon Ross caught for a 54-yard touchdown pass put the Eagles up 12-10.

South Pike was hit with a 15-yard conduct penalty for excessive celebrating which made them run the PAT from the Viking 18. Martin’s pass was incomplete to leave the score at 12-10 with 8:26 left.

South Pike had a chance to ice the contest after WC was hit with four more penalties for 51 yards during the next three minutes. The flags were for motion, intentional grounding, late hit and pass interference. Martin, though, had a third down pass intercepted by Joe Harris in the end zone, giving WC one last chance with 3:45 left.

The drive started with a holding penalty to wipe out a first down run by Joel Forbes. WC bounced back picking up one first down one two runs and then Keaton Sanders hit Caples for a 25-yard gain to the Eagles 38. The march ended with a fumble and three straight incompletions.

“You call that luck,” Huffman said of his team’s fourth straight win over the Vikings. “With a team as young as I’ve got this year, I’ll take anything we can get.”

The loss spoiled a great game from Caples who had 92 yards receiving, all in the second half, including a 47-yard TD reception with 4:46 left in the third quarter.