PLYMOUTH – It was an end to a season that had more than it’s share of mountaintop highs and darkest valley woes, but it was a fitting end as Plymouth’s Rockies fell to top ranked Ft. Wayne Dwenger by an 8-0 final.
In the end it was one of those classic games where both teams “left it all on the field.”
“That’s been the story of the whole season,” said Plymouth coach John Baron. “That’s what these kids can take with them. They never gave up, they faced their worst fears in losing a teammate and they won a sectional championship. How can you be disappointed in this group? A week ago we were sitting on top of the world and tonight it’s just the opposite. I’m going to miss the kids. I love being around them and being around the coaches in preparation.”
It would have been hard to be disappointed in anything the Rockies did in this game, time and again turning a high powered Dwenger offense away in a first half that was a virtual deadlock on the scoreboard and statistically.
After 24 minutes both teams went to the locker room exactly where they started at 0-0.
“A lot of times when this happens you feel bad as a coach, you question could we have done this or that,” said Barron. “I don’t have that feeling tonight, we just got beat by a really really solid team. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next two weeks but that was a great high school football game. Not a whole lot of penalties, one turnover, both teams going for it on fourth down, You had one touchdown scored in 48 minute that says a lot about both programs.”
It was a night for defense as the only sustained offense of the night game on the Saints first drive of the second half taking the kickoff and driving for the game’s only touchdown. With a bad snap on the extra point the Rockies got a break, but couldn’t mount a drive of their own.
“I think people were expecting a lot of points but their defense was really sound, really physical and really fast,” said Barron. “We threw everything at them and really just couldn’t get anything going. We really tried to keep the ball in Jack (Barron) and Cam’s (Eveland) as much as possible.
“What can you say about our defense, to hold those guys to just one touchdown, I think they played awfully, awfully hard. I know that the first half looked identical on both sides of the ball. They got one good drive – their first one – in the second half. We let (Amaun Clark) get away from us a couple times and they brought in some extra lineman. We were really outsized and we never gave up.”
Plymouth ends their season as Sectional champions with a record of 10-3.
