PLYMOUTH – The good news is that Plymouth’s Rockies got a win at home without playing overtime. The bad news is that it was another struggle as Wawasee took the Rockies to the brink in a Plymouth 28-14 win.
“It feels like a loss,” said Plymouth head coach John Barron. “We aren’t going to be a championship team unless we start playing a little bit better on the defensive side. We give up big plays and we let them gouge us running the football and we are playing our base defense. We aren’t doing anything tricky. Our kids should know where they are supposed to be. We just didn’t get off blocks.”
“We haven’t found that game where we got any separation yet,” said Barron. “We’ve never had our ‘two’s’ in yet. We’ve never had the hands team on the field for an onside kick. We’ve played all 48 minutes with all the starters. We just can’t get separation from people.”
The only real time the Rockies could breathe was the final five minutes when two consecutive big plays gave them what amounted to a 14 point swing and brought about the final score.
With fourth and five at the six the Warriors were driving to what could have been a tie at 21. Wawasee quarterback Evan Eshbach went back to pass and Plymouth linebacker Ezra Winkle came straight up the middle for a huge sack to kill the drive.
On the next play Plymouth running back Blake Reed broke a tackle for a sure three yards loss in the backfield, beat everybody to the corner and just outran everybody to the goal line for an 86 yard touchdown run that would seal it.
“Those are the plays that we need to have out of our guys,” said Barron. “(Nicholas) Craft had a big interception there too and we don’t turn it into any points and that’s not like our offense. We usually turn those into points.”
It was that kind of a game for the Rockies who also turned a 7-7 second quarter tie into a 21-7 halftime lead with a huge 65 yard touchdown reception from Cole Filson followed less than a minute later with a Seth Rundell run to the end zone to give the Rockies a cushion.
Wawasee tightened it with a commanding third quarter that saw them get within seven going to a pounding ground game.
“I don’t know that they did (make adjustments at halftime). I think we just had some kids that weren’t reading their keys and reacting properly,” said Barron. “We were reading too much. We still struggle a little at the safety level with whether its run or pass. We do a lot of practice time with leverage and reading keys and sometimes it looks like we aren’t coached.”
Plymouth found some success running the football as well and even though they had 429 yards of offense found it tough to make it pay off.
“We didn’t get in any sort of rhythm offensively,” said Barron. “We started to find some things when we brought (Blake) Davis in to run the football and that got (Blake) Reed going and he became the kid that we know he is. He came up really big at the end and threw some really big blocks in the third quarter.”
Plymouth survives to go 3-2 on the season and 2-1 in NLC play. They have a date with Concord next Friday night. Wawasee stays winless at 0-5.
•PLYMOUTH 28, WAWASEE 14
at Plymouth
Wawasee 0 7 7 0 – 14 Plymouth 0 21 0 7 – 28
Scoring Summary: Second Quarter
6:43 P – Blake Davis 10 yd run (Dylan Gamble kick)
3:30 W – Hepler-Fink 11 yd pass from Eshbach (Johnson kick)
2:02 P – Cole Filson 65 yd pass from Joe Barron (Dylan Gamble kick)
1:08 P – Seth Rundell 13 yd run (Dylan Gamble kick)
Third Quarter
5:03 W – Hepler-Fink 17 yd pass from Eshbach (Johnson kick)
Fourth Quarter
5:16 P – Blake Reed 86 yd run (Dylan Gamble kick)
Rushing – (Wawasee37 carries for 105 yards) Peete 13-67, Brown 10-27, Hepler-Fink 2-12, Eshbach 9-6, Landeros 2-5, Moore 1-minus 12. (Plymouth 33 rushes for 313 yards) Blake Reed 13-136, Seth Rundell 8-108, Blake Davis 7-56, Joe Barron 2-8, Cole Filson 3-5. Passing – Eshbach 14 of 24 for 177 yards, 2 TD, INT. Joe Barron 10 of 17 for 116 yards TD, 2 INT. Receiving – Wawasee – Hepler-Fink 9-85, Hauntz 3-70, Slabaugh 1-13, Salazar 1-9. Plymouth – Cole Filson 4-77, Garrett Schrameyer 2-18, Jacob Deacon 2-0, Blake Reed 1-12, Seth Rundell 1-9.
Tackles – Blake Davis 8, Joe Styers 9, Ivan Winkle 8, Ezra Winkle 6
Sacks – Blake Davis, Diego Garcia, Ezra Winkle.
