Tigers Come Up Short In Wild One At Plymouth
PLYMOUTH — Both teams took their shots, but in the end Plymouth made a few more plays. Possibly the biggest winners in Friday’s contest at the Rockpile were the fans, however, as they bore witness to a thrilling, 32-29 overtime affair on Blueberry Festival weekend in Plymouth.
“We had chances. They had chances, too. That’s football — somebody wins, somebody loses,” said Warsaw head coach Bart Curtis, coaching his first game against longtime friend John Barron.
“I think everybody got their money’s worth and then some. What a football game,” said Barron. “I mean, it’s a testament. Their kids never gave up and true to Bart’s form. I’ve never coached against Bart so trying to figure out how he’s play-calling and everything, and once they got the lead I had to use some timeouts just to get them off the field. But I’m very, very proud of our kids’ resiliency as well.”
Apart from Ezra Winkle’s 25-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown following a Tristan Sims blindside hit of Warsaw quarterback Josh West at the 7:31 stop of the first period — which staked the home team to an initial 7-0 lead with Dylan Gamble’s point-after kick — and Harrison Mevis’ 37-yard field goal with just 19 seconds left in the period, which whittled that lead down to 7-3, Friday’s Northern Lakes Conference-opener was mostly a battle for field position until late in the second quarter. That’s when things got wild.
The combatants scored a trio of touchdowns in the last 51 seconds of the half. It was Plymouth (2-1, 1-0 NLC) who scored first when quarterback Joe Barron hit Garrett Schrameyer for a 48-yard catch-and-carry that pushed the Rockies out to a 14-3 advantage. But Warsaw (2-1, 0-1 NLC) struck right back when Eli Owen scooped up the ensuing kickoff and ran it back 91 yards to bring the Tigers within 14-10 just 12 seconds later. Owen came up big again two plays later with a fumble recovery at the Plymouth 23 with just 32 ticks remaining until halftime, and Warsaw needed just three plays to punish the turnover on a West 1-yard sneak. Following Mevis’ missed PAT, the Tigers entered the intermission with a 16-14 lead and seemingly all the momentum in the world.
“I’ll be honest with you, we didn’t mean to kick the ball deep to the touchdown. That was supposed to be on the ground and short. I’m not covering my own rear end, but we didn’t really want to kick it deep to them,” explained Barron of the kickoff to Owen.
“It just kind of broke open and got wild,” said Curtis of the end of the first half. “That was a good high school football game.”
The first half was only a preview of things to come, and things got wild again at the close of the game.
The two teams traded leads once more in the third, as Plymouth capped a 10-play, 81-yard drive with a 5-yard TD plunge from Blake Reed, and Warsaw answered with a seven-play, 65-yard touchdown drive culminating in West’s high fade under pressure to Blake Marsh, who gave his team back a tenuous 23-21 lead with a 31-yard carry up the Warsaw sideline with exactly a minute to go in the quarter.
The Tigers and the Rockies settled back into another field position battle in the fourth, and that’s the way the score remained until the last minute and a half of regulation.
A long Warsaw drive stalled out at the Plymouth 30 when the visitors failed to convert on fourth and 3, and Plymouth finally got some traction on its next possession. The Rockies made two fourth down conversions on the way to a 13-play, 70-yard scoring drive, highlighted by back-to-back catches by Cole Filson, and the home team followed up Barron’s 3-yard keeper around the right side with a Reed two-point run to put the pressure on the Tigers at 29-23 with just 1:26 on the clock.
“Cole Filson was huge, a big catch up the middle. What more can you say about him?” asked Barron. “He was our starting quarterback for three years, and we moved him. Most kids in today’s world probably would’ve quit, and Cole is as classy a kid as there is. He’s an all-in guy.”
Warsaw needed just four plays to move the ball 62 yards, and Trevor Albertson hit Blake Marsh on a 31-yard hook and ladder for the equalizing score with just 44 seconds remaining. The usually solid Mevis shanked the point-after try, however, and the ball hung spinning in the air after hitting the left goal post, ultimately falling the wrong way and leaving the score knotted at 29-29.
“I was getting ready to shake Bart’s hand and say ‘Great win’ and move on. I feel bad for that kid. That young man is an excellent kicker,” said Barron of Mevis’ missed PAT. “I told him after the game to keep his head up because he’s going to win a lot of games for them.”
Instead of congratulating Curtis, Barron’s Rockies ran out the clock and got ready for the extra period. Warsaw started overtime on offense but was stopped short on a quarterback sneak on fourth and 1. The Warsaw defense held firm, too, but Gamble converted a 25-yard field goal on fourth down, sending the Rockies into a raucous celebration on their home field.
“Here’s the deal — we had chances. Again, we didn’t finish drives,” Curtis explained. “One down here, penalties. One down there, we had a yard to go and I thought we’d get it on a sneak, and we didn’t. But, you know what? I thought we competed, played hard, and that’s what we wanted out of tonight.”
“This was a great Northern Lakes Conference game, and both teams played hard, played fast, and it was a clean game. Bart is going to be a handful,” said Barron.
Warsaw actually out-gained its hosts 286 yards to 218, and both teams showed a good mixture of running and passing plays. Barron was 9 for 23 for 151 yards and a touchdown, while West was an efficient 5 for 7 passing for 120 yards and a score, and Albertson went 1 of 2 for 16 yards. The two teams combined for nearly 230 penalty yards in 18 total whistles at the heated rivalry contest, with Warsaw recording 100 penalty yards on eight infractions and Plymouth giving up 127 yards on 10 whistles.
Kane Dawson led all rushers with 71 yards on 25 carries for Warsaw, and West was close behind with 64 rushing yards on 17 runs. Reed finished with 59 yards and a score on 21 runs for the Rockies. John Culbertson recorded 10 tackles, including two for loss for the Tiger defensive unit, while Blake Davis and Diego Garcia both finished with seven tackles, and Garcia had a fumble recovery as Warsaw turned over twice on fumbles compared to one fumbled TO for the home team.
Warsaw returns home to play Elkhart Memorial next Friday at 7 p.m. Plymouth gets back on the road for a game at Northridge, also slated for 7 p.m.