Wawasee quarterback Aaron Evans breaks off a 45-yard touchdown run Friday night in a 51-29 Concord victory. (Photos by Mike Deak)

SYRACUSE – In what became an old-fashioned football shoot-out, Wawasee just ran out of firepower. Concord, on the other hand, did what Concord does and ran away with a 51-29 win over the Warriors Friday night at Warrior Field.

For every ‘is this the night?’ moment for the Warriors, Concord responded with a haymaker. Midway through the second quarter, Wawasee looked like it had the chance to make a big statement trailing 17-14 with the ball, but couldn’t get a drive going and had to punt. Concord then came down with a bevy of power runs, running inside the Wawasee 20.

Jack Lietzan, a quarterback converted to feature running back, finished off the drive with a two-yard score to put the Minutemen up 24-14. Another Wawasee punt on its next drive saw Concord with the ball as the clock was winding down, and made good on the chance. A 50-yard pass from Ethan Cain to Damien Jackson got Concord to the three with 12.1 seconds to go in the half. Cain then found Brady Reed for a touchdown pass. A three-point game was now a 17-point Concord lead going into the half.

Wawasee had another moment like that after Aaron Evans hit Dylan Hepler with his second 80-plus-yard touchdown, this one for 89 yards that made the game 45-29.

But Evans would later go down with an injury, which was the stick in the spokes for the Warriors. As Wawasee’s next drive stalled, Concord put the dagger in it with Lietzan breaking off another touchdown run for his second score and a 51-29 lead.

Lietzan led Concord with 176 yards rushing, part of a 315-yard Minuteman steamroll on the ground. Cain added 55 yards on the ground and two scores and threw for 80 yards and two touchdowns. Concord as a whole piled up 395 total yards.

Evans had quite a night before exiting with the injury, running for 74 yards, a busted play that went for 45 yards up the middle for Wawasee’s first touchdown. The junior quarterback also threw for 243 yards, hitting Hepler for scores of 80 and 89 yards as well as an 11-yard jump ball to Jacob Hand for a score. Hepler wound up with 218 total receiving yards. Dalton Pearish caught a two-point conversion for the Warriors.

Wawasee would stack up 371 total yards, but the inability to get the Minutemen off the field was the difference.

Wawasee falls to 1-3 overall and 0-2 in the Northern Lakes Conference. Class 5-A No. 3 Concord moves to 4-0 and 3-0 in the NLC.

A side note to the football game was the coming together of the Wawasee and Concord communities in a food drive for Hurricane Harvey relief. The drive gathered totals of $150 cash, over 400 food items and over 2,500 books. The items will be joined with the ongoing efforts of Zimmer-Biomet in Kosciusko County to be distributed to local Houston agencies.