Warsaw Football: Beauty Meets A Beast [VIDEO]
WARSAW – For as historical as Friday night’s 26-16 Warsaw win over Chesterton was, one would likely not be able to find a game with as many anomalies as the 6-A sectional had.
A game that saw 17 turnovers, 10 physical exchanges of the ball and seven more on downs. Warsaw scuffled to negative nine yards in the first half, but scored the game’s final 24 points on four straight possessions to open the second half. The game opened with safeties on the first two possessions, one for each team. And, oh by the way, Warsaw head coach Phil Jensen passed the legendary George Fisher for the most wins all time at Warsaw with 104.
Hope you had your bingo sheets handy Friday night, all the oddballs were given.
“I’m lost. How many games do you see two safeties happen on the first two possessions of a game?” Jensen said shortly after taking a photo with his program in front of the scoreboard recognizing his milestone. “The whole first half was out of whack for whatever reason.”
Chesterton got on the board first when Warsaw snapped a punt attempt out of the endzone, but Chesterton then botched two snaps and had a third go array, forcing a low punt that Warsaw blocked through the endzone for its own two-pointer.
The game was relatively quiet until the final three minutes of the half, when the Trojans converted a fourth down and then tossed a 19-yard out pattern to 6-5 receiver Jake Warren for a score. Chesterton then forced Zach Riley into a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, getting the ball back at the Warsaw 28. Warren found his second score with 17.7 seconds to go in the half, a 14-yard catch much in the same manner as his first.
At 16-2 Chesterton at the half, the tone of the game had changed completely.
But where Warsaw was making the mistakes in the first half, boy did they turn it around in the third quarter. The Tigers forced a Chesterton turnover on each of its eight possessions in the second half. Let that sink in for a second.
In each of the first four giveaways, Warsaw came away with points, scoring 24 unanswered in stunning fashion. Braden Weaver recovered a fumble on the first play of the second half, and Warsaw capped the drive with a seven-yard Tristan Larsh touchdown run. Jack Tucker recovered the next Trojan fumble, and Will McGarvey capped the short drive with a three-yard score.
Blake Marsh, who had been picked on by Chesterton’s offense all night, made a nice play on a pass up the middle and gave Warsaw the ball right back. McGarvey ended the efficient drive with a seven-yard high-stepper and a 23-16 Warsaw lead.
Chesterton again coughed up the ball on its next try, and while the Warsaw drive stalled at the five, Harrison Mevis added a 22-yard field goal to give Warsaw the 26-16 lead with 10:19 to go in the game.
The remainder of the game would end with each team turning the ball over on its possessions in an almost unbelievable fashion. Warsaw fumbled away its final three possessions, including its final one trying to milk the clock inside its own 10. Chesterton, however, was picked off by Marsh again at the goalline to ice the game.
“Blake is a very coachable kid and plays with some resiliency,” Jensen said of Marsh. “Our seniors have taken our little sophomore under their wing and the kid made some plays tonight.”
After Warsaw’s disastrous first half, the Tigers wound up with 103 total yards, 77 of which went to McGarvey in a huge addition in returning from an injury.
Weaver led the defense with six solo tackles, eight assists and a fumble recovery. Tucker added five solo tackles.
Jensen moves to 104-84 in his 18 years on the sidelines as head coach at Warsaw (1996-03, 2008-present), passing Fisher’s mark of 103-95-15 (1926-51).
Next Friday presents itself with the ultimate chase of history for the success-starved Warsaw program. Still seeking its first-ever sectional title, it will have to do it at Jensen’s alma mater, Penn, where the last meeting in 2000 is still crystal clear on the minds of those who follow the Tiger program.
“The thing that makes it nice, and I wanted to get a picture of it, it’s a playoff game. You go back, when I came here 20 years ago, we never won a playoff game. That one that puts it over the hump, to be a playoff game, makes it something that I will remember later on. That’s why I wanted a picture so I can’t forget.
“Seventeen years ago tonight, we lost a helluva game, a 10-7 game on a roughing the holder call. So I am more than happy to go back home with these guys from my new home, and we’ll do whatever we can do. I messaged them, ‘Dare to believe it. Dare to believe it. And they will.’”