SYRACUSE — The change of schedule didn’t throw off the Plymouth Rockies as they lit up the scoreboard early and often in taking a 35—0 win at Wawasee.
A rare Saturday night game caused by lightning and monsoon rains on Friday did little to throw the Plymouth offense off stride as the Rockies added a wrinkle or two and found 312 yards through the air with quarterback Joe Barron hitting on 20 of 30 passes.
“I thought Joe threw the ball well, it was windy and it was tight and he did a good job getting the ball into the hands of his playmakers,” said Plymouth head coach John Barron. “We put some new routes in and he found them. We got the guys at different levels and he found them.”
It was a big night for Plymouth receivers with Seth Rundell catching nine passes for a 94—yard night and Jake Reichard hitting the century mark in yardage with six catches.
Garrett Schrameyer had the biggest strike of the night with an 80—yard touchdown on the “go” route and had another 60—yard bomb called back for a penalty.
“It was a pretty clean win for us on both sides of the ball,” said Barron. “We did what we had to do. It’s not easy sometimes when you throw kids timing off, I thought our kids were pretty focused.”
As good as the offense was it was the defense that caught attention-getting a lot of bodies on the field and pitching the shut out.
“That shut out does mean a lot to us,” said Barron. “We don’t do that very often. Our front seven, our tackles and our ends were really good tonight.”
“We’ve got Panzica at end and he’s a little more athletic,” he said. “(Isaac) Navajar continues to get better, Kendal (Himes) has settled in there (at tackle) and Diego has played a lot of defense for us and it really helps having all that experience.”
The defense held Wawasee to just 89 yards of total offense on the night, putting constant pressure on Warrior quarterback Parker Young with Panzica, Nick Craft and Joe Styers picking up sacks. In all 8 Rockies ended the night with multiple tackles with Reichard and Arturo Valdez getting interceptions.
Those turnovers early in the game were a key to the Rockies jumping out to a lead they would never relinquish.
“I don’t know what it was maybe it was playing on Saturday or Homecoming or what, I thought we had taken a step forward and tonight we just took a bunch of steps back,” said Wawasee coach Jon Reutebuch. “Plymouth is a really good team and they are going to throw the ball on you but the thing that bothers me is the mental errors.”
The Rockies are 5—1 and come home to face Concord (6—0) in a battle that has big implications in the NLC title race.
•PLYMOUTH 35, WAWASEE 0
at Wawasee
Plymouth 7 21 7 0 — 35
Wawasee 0 0 0 0 — 0
Scoring Summary:
1st quarter
04:17 PLYM — Ivan Winkle 1 yd run (Adrian Cardona kick).
2nd quarter
11:48 PLYM — Jake Reichard 37 yd pass from Joe Barron (Adrian Cardona kick).
06:44 PLYM — Ivan Winkle 1 yd run (Oscar Mendoza kick).
00:34 PLYM — Garr Schrameyer 80 yd pass from Joe Barron (Oscar Mendoza kick).
3rd quarter
03:58 PLYM — Seth Rundell 27 yd pass from Joe Barron (Adrian Cardona kick).
RUSHING: Plymouth-Ivan Winkle 20-66, Joe Barron 3-9, Kwintin Heiny 1-5, Lenn Creighbaum 1-0. Wawasee—Brown 6—31, Salazar 5—12, Garza 1—3, Young 6—minus 7.
PASSING: Plymouth-Joe Barron 20-30-0-298, Lenn Creighbaum 1-1-0-3, Ivan Winkle 1-1-0-11. Wawasee—Young 9—33—2—50.
RECEIVING: Plymouth-Seth Rundell 9-94, Jake Reichard 6-100, Garr Schrameyer 2-84, Joe Styers 2-20, Ivan Winkle 2-11, Nate Derifield 1-3. Wawasee—Garza 3-24, Baker 2-13, Morris 2-11, Salazar 2-2.
INTERCEPTIONS: Plymouth-Jake Reichard 1-13, Arturo Valdez 1-5. Wawasee-None.
FUMBLES: Plymouth-Joe Barron 1-1. Wawasee-None.
SACKS (UA—A): Plymouth-Dylan Panzica 0-1, Nicholas Craft 1-0, Joe Styers 0-1.
Wawasee—None.
TACKLES (UA—A): Plymouth—Nicholas Craft 4—4, Collin Mills 2—2, Seth Rundell 2—2, Zephan Nixon 2—0, Reggie Vazquez 2—0, Dylan Panzica 1—2, Taylor Judd 1—2, Joe Styers 1—2, Diego Garcia 1—1, Jake Reichard 1—1.
