PLYMOUTH – If nothing else it was a statement game for the defense as Plymouth’s Rockies took a fourth straight NLC win over Wawasee on homecoming night at Plymouth 32-7.
A year ago in a similar situation the Warriors derailed the possibility of an NLC championship for Plymouth by taking a 52-35 win. That was a fact that wasn’t lost on Plymouth all week long.
“We had a big challenge this week and I can’t say enough about the way they played,” said Plymouth coach John Barron. “They (Plymouth defense) really were physical. Our goal was to take (Clayton) Cook out of the game and I think we did that – I don’t think he had a catch all night – because we feel Wawasee goes the way he goes, and that was obviously very important because we sure didn’t do a whole lot offensively in the first half.”
If not for a touchdown pass from Warrior quarterback Gage Reinhard to Sam Clark being taken off the board by a holding call, the teams would have gone in at half tied at 7. As it was, four first half turnovers had Plymouth feeling lucky to be in the game at all.
“I think we were a little rattled,” said Barron. “The fumbled exchanges (between quarterback Jack Barron and fullback Taylor Fulton). We had four turnovers in the first half. Typically your not going to beat anybody doing that but the way our defense played tonight – we are really sound on that side of the ball.”
“In that first half we might have had a little Homecoming hangover. We were all part of that Homecoming hype and we were all involved in it – The coaches, the players – and it was a lot of fun. But we got a big return (a 50 yard kickoff return to open the second half from Cam Eveland) and then we got the ball to (Justin) Drudge and we finally got physical with them up front.”
The second half was a clinic in “Plymouth football” with the Rockies chewing up clock and yardage and riding to a big win.
“We can do a lot of things but I really don’t want to get away from what we do well and that’s run triple (option), and toss with Justin (Drudge) and midline,” said Barron. “That’s something the coaches will look at tonight. See what was really going on in the first half.”
“They were really physical on defense and they took some things away from us.”
After the dust had lifted on a rough first half, Jack Barron had a big game for the Rockies with 18 carries for 128 yards and a 51 yard run for a score. Drudge had 56 yards rushing, 39 yards receiving and a pair of touchdowns.
Plymouth is 6-0 with a road game at Concord next week.
Score by Quarter
Wawasee…………. 0 0 0 7 – 7 Record: (3-3,1-3)
Plymouth………… 0 7 19 6 – 32 Record: (6-0,4-0)
Scoring Summary:
2nd 08:43 PLYM – J. Drudge 38 yd pass from J. Barron (J. LaFree kick), 7-80 2:25, WAWA 0 – PLYM 7
3rd 11:43 PLYM – J. Drudge 33 yd run (J. LaFree kick failed), 1-33 0:07, WAWA 0 – PLYM 13
06:44 PLYM – J. Drudge 4 yd run (J. Barron rush failed), 7-52 3:36, WAWA 0 – PLYM 19
01:26 PLYM – J. Barron 51 yd run (J. LaFree kick), 7-94 2:44, WAWA 0 – PLYM 26
4th 11:33 PLYM – C. Eveland 7 yd run (J. LaFree kick failed), 4-22 1:05, WAWA 0 – PLYM 32
04:48 WAWA – Katzer 7 yd run (Garza kick), 2-13 0:52, WAWA 7 – PLYM 32
RUSHING: Wawasee-Katzer 4-16; Katzer 5-11; Wilson 9-2; Cook 2-0; Reinhard
7-minus 4; Wadkins 4-minus 5. Plymouth-J. Barron 19-128; J. Drudge 5-56; T.
Fulton 14-53; C. Eveland 1-7; T. Hooten 1-2; T. McMillen 2-1; D. Johnson 4-minus
8.
PASSING: Wawasee-Reinhard 9-26-2-62. Plymouth-J. Barron 3-9-1-43.
RECEIVING: Wawasee-Clark 4-15; Krizman 2-10; Betts 1-18; Katzer 1-10; Wilson
1-9. Plymouth-J. Drudge 2-39; N. Nixon 1-4.
INTERCEPTIONS: Wawasee-Reinhard 1-8. Plymouth-C. Koss 1-0; J. LaFree 1-0.
FUMBLES: Wawasee-Wadkins 1-0. Plymouth-J. Barron 3-3; D. Johnson 2-1.
Stadium: The Rockpile Attendance: 0
Kickoff time: 7:30 End of Game: 10:00 Total elapsed time: 2:30
Officials: Scorer: Ben Waymouth;
Temperature: 80 Wind: Calm Weather: Beautiful!
Plymouth stays perfect on the season 6-0 ; 3-0
