Noah Wadkins bulldozes over several Griffith defenders during one of his several big runs of the night in Wawasee’s 21-7 win over the visiting Panthers. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – Trust the system.

The Wawasee football program changed its entire philosophy in the offseason as its personnel changed following the graduation of a particularly athletic class. The Warriors unveiled their new offense, a triple option based scheme, Friday night in the season opener with Griffith and used it to capture a 21-7 victory.

The game was played at a very slow pace. The old “three yards and a cloud of dust” philosophy may have been a bit uptempo compared to the Warriors speed against Griffith, but that’s just how Wawasee wanted it to be, especially in a tight game in the fourth quarter.

After leading virtually the entire game 7-0, Wawasee found itself tied 7-7 following a 65-yard touchdown pass from Griffith’s Troy Cullen to Joey Martoccio with 11:39 left in the game. On the ensuing drive the Warriors used several big runs from Noah Wadkins and Michael Katzer to set up three-yard score from quarterback Tyler Smith. Smith’s score, his second of the night, gave Wawasee a 14-7 lead.

The score was the shot in the arm the Warriors had been looking for since Smith’s first touchdown, an 18-yard run in the first quarter. The momentum from the score carried over to special teams where Riley Pierson laid a thunderous hit on Panther returner Josh Miller. Griffith was forced to punt thanks to a stifling effort from the Warrior defense, putting the ball back in the hands of Smith and the Wawasee offense.

Griffith’s defense knew its back was against the wall and held Wawasee to a fourth and 20. The Warriors were stopped cold on the Griffith 32-yard line with 1:47 to play, the Panthers would have a chance to tie the game, er, maybe not.

Out of field goal range and too close to punt, Wawasee went for it on the long fourth down play and it paid off big time. Smith broke several tackles and stumbled into the end zone for his third score of the night to all but secure the win for the Warriors. With a 21-7 lead and just over a minute to play, Wawasee’s Stephen Possell sacked Cullen on fourth down to effectively end the Panthers chances.

“Our secondary really rose up in key situations, with the exception of that one big play,” said Wawasee head coach Josh Ekovich of his defense. “Our defensive line was obviously solid. I think what it came down to was that we just hit harder than they did and I think that’s why we were able to grind it out against them all game.”

Wawasee used the legs of Smith, Wadkins and Katzer to control the clock for over 10 minutes of the fourth quarter. In total the Warriors tallied 241 yards of offense, each one of them on the ground. Smith led all players with a 190 yards on the ground. The junior quarterback broke his leg last fall and missed the rest of the season, but he showed no signs of weakness Friday night taking big hits and even dishing out a few of his own.

“He’s a tough individual,” Ekovich remarked when asked about Smith. “He ran hard, he probably ran 110 plays today between offense and defense. He’s just a tough buck. These kids are in shape and it shows how much work they’ve put in this summer.

“We’ve got some bruisers and that’s kind of the mantra our team has. We’re not a flashy team, we’re not an ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ team like we were the past couple of years. We’re going to grind it out and hopefully it sends us a long way this year.”

Defensively the Warriors were led by Possell and Nick LeCount who, respectively, had seven and five tackles. Possell also added two sacks. Lucas Garza was a perfect 3-3 on extra point attempts for Wawasee.

Wawasee (1-0) will travel to West Noble (0-1) next Friday for a 7 p.m. kick.