ROCHESTER – It would be hard to find anything wrong in Plymouth’s 59-6 win over Rochester, but it’s still a hard win to assess for a coaching staff trying to sort out some question marks heading to a key NLC match up with Warsaw.

 

The Rockies piled up 34 points in the very first quarter – Benji Nixon touching the ball four times in the game and scoring a touchdown each time in the first quarter – and rolled out to 59 points in the first half leading to Plymouth playing their JV squad in the games second half along with the officials deciding on a running clock.

 

“The bottom line is we got to play somebody other than ourselves,” said Plymouth coach John Barron. “Our younger kids got in there and made some big plays. I thought we played hard. Seeing Cole (Filson) make some big plays was good. Dylan (Johnson) made some big plays too. Benji (Nixon) scored four touchdowns in the first quarter. Other than them getting a big special teams play there really wasn’t a lot to be upset about.

 

“You take it as a win, you never apologize for a win and you never take them for granted, Obviously they are struggling and to compound it they lost their quarterback on the first play.”

 

The tone was set on the very first play from scrimmage as Zebra sophmore quarterback Brady Perez rolled to the right and was hit by Plymouth linebacker Blake Reed resulting in Perez having to be taken off on a stretcher and to a waiting ambulance. The emergency team had barely returned to the field from the first trip until they took another with lineman Zach Graham. Both Zebras had neck injuries.

 

In between an official sustained a knee injury requiring his being taken off the field on a cart. And that was just the first quarter, which took over an hour to play.

 

“In a lot of ways it was really odd. You never want to see an ambulance on the field in a game ever and to see it twice and have an official go down it was just a strange night,” said Barron. “We got out of there relatively healthy and it was just nice to see our kids make plays.”

 

When kids start playing fast for us it means they’re confident, and they trust their team mates. We have some speed on this team and some kids that can run. Our linebackers can all run. Our secondary is pretty quick. We heard a lot of communication and we widened up our linebackers this week just to give our young kids a chance to run down hill and make a play. I think those two (Blake Reed and Ezra Winkle) played really well.”

 

“Luckily we get the win and we get to get ready to play Warsaw.”

 

Plymouth threw one pass in the game – a twenty two yard touchdown to Benji Nixon from Cole Filson. Nixon went on to score three more times on runs of one, 35 and 11 yards. Linebacker Caleb Koss accounted for the other first quarter score with a fumble recovery for a touchdown for the defense.

 

Tristan McMillen scored twice in the second quarter on runs of 16 and 26 yards, and both quarterbacks – Johnson and Filson – had second quarter touchdown runs.

 

Plymouth (1-1) will come home next week for their opening NLC contest with Warsaw.

Score by Quarters

Plymouth 34 25 0 0 – 59

Rochester 0 0 6 0 – 6

 

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

P – Benji Nixon 22 Yd Pass FromCole Filson (Jeremy Drudge Kick)

 

P – Benji Nixon 1 Yd Run (Jeremy Drudge Kick)

 

P – Benji Nixon 35 Yd Run (Jeremy Drudge Kick No Good)

 

P – Caleb Koss 9 Yd Fumble Return (Jeremy Drudge Kick)

 

P – Benji Nixon 11 Yd Run (Jeremy Drudge Kick)

 

Second Quarter

P – Tristen McMillen 16 Yd Run (Jeremy Drudge Kick)

 

P – Dylan Johnson 2 Yd Run (Calvin Raymond Kick No Good)

 

P – Tristen McMillen 26 Yd Run (Jeremy Drudge Kick No Good)

 

Third Quarter

R – 11 Yd Run (Zane Duff Kick No Good)

 

Rushing – (Plymouth 46-385) McMillen 12-115 2TD, Filson 4-81 TD, B. Nixon 3-47 3TD, Johnson 6-34 TD, Bennitt 1-32, A. McMillen 1-23, Stiller 5-15, Schoof 3-14. (Rochester 25- -7) Abbott 14-30 TD,

Pearson 5-7.

 

Passing – Filson 1-1 22 yds TD, Pearson 1-7 INT.

 

Receiving – B. Nixon 1-22 TD

 

Tackles – Masson 5.