Text by Doug Roorbach/The News Herald–
The Mississinewa Indians opened their season Friday night with a come-from-behind 27-20 win over Manchester, sending a capacity crowd home happy. The Squires twice led by two touchdowns, but Mississinewa scored 21 points in the final 20 minutes of the game to win it.
“They just kept plugging away, fighting,” said Curt Funk, head coach of the Indians, “The result at the end was a victory. It was fun out there.”
In the first eight minutes of the game, it looked like it was going to be an easy night for the Indians. They took the opening kickoff on their own 7 yard line and marched all the way down the field, picking up six first downs.
The drive stalled inside the Manchester 10, though, and when kicker Josh Walton missed a 25-yard field goal try, the Indians came away empty. The Indians didn’t move the ball again until the last two minutes of the first half.
In the meantime, Manchester scored twice, the first coming with less than a minute left in the first quarter. After taking over on their own 31, Mansfield benefited from a 15-yard face mask penalty, then connected on a 49-yard pass from the Squires’ senior quarterback Bailey Ness to senior wideout Keelan Norwood.
Norwood would have scored but couldn’t quite keep his balance after a shoestring tackle. No worries for Manchester, though, Clay Sellers finished off the drive by going five yards around the left end for the touchdown.
The score stayed 7-0 until less than two minutes left in the first half when Ness struck again. From his own 41, Ness called his own number on a quarterback draw, found a seam and took it all the way for a 59-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead for Manchester.
Just when it looked as if the Squires were going to dominate the game, the Indians came to life. Starting from his own 26, Mississinewa’s sophomore quarterback Cade McCoin found freshman Heisman Skeens on two consecutive pass plays–swing passes into the flat on the right side, then the identical play to the left–and Skeens dashed and darted for a total of 44 yards to the Manchester 30.
“Heisman is a phenomenal football player, as you saw tonight,” said Funk, “He’s a playmaker.”
After a face-mask penalty took the ball to the five yard line, McCoin punched it in with just 25 seconds left in the half, but the Indians missed the PAT and the score was 14-6. On the subsequent possession, Manchester fumbled; the Indians couldn’t capitalize, though, and the half ended.
It seemed as if momentum had changed, but the Squires cast that in doubt when they opened the second half with a 61-yard drive for a touchdown, highlighted by another big pass play from Ness to Norwood for 39 yards. Ness took it in, but Mississinewa blocked the PAT and the score was 20-6.
“I was a little disappointed that they drove down the field on their first possession of the third quarter and scored,” said Funk, “but then we started playing some football after that.”
They did, indeed, taking the ball on their own 34 and going 66 yards for a touchdown that made the score 20-13. The drive featured a fourth-down conversion on a quarterback sneak by McCoin and a heavy dose of running back Alez Sherron running between the tackles.
“In the first half I felt like we weren’t getting what [Sherron]’s capable of,” said Funk of his senior running back. “In the second half he came alive and you saw what he’s capable of.”
Funk thought that his team also settled down a bit, after some early-game jitters. “They grew up a little,” he said, “A lot of these kids last year were JV football players and this is their first time under the lights.”
Among those making his first varsity start was Skeen, who played both wide receiver and defensive back. On Manchester’s next possession, Skeen picked off a tipped pass on the Manchester 28 to change the momentum and set up the Indians’ third score. The short drive featured four straight carries by Sherron, who went in to tie the game, 20-20.
“Our line just started coming off the ball and started playing smash-mouth football,” said Funk.
The Indians and Squires traded punts on the subsequent possessions, leaving Manchester with the ball on its own 43. The Squires drove it to the Mississinewa 49, where they faced fourth down and two yards to go. “I figured that they were going to punt it,” said Funk, but the Squires decided to go for it.
Senior defensive lineman Ben Stevens stopped the play, and the Indians took over on downs at midfield. “I was glad they went for it because I liked the way our defense was playing at the time,” said Funk.
Sherron started off the Indians’ subsequent drive with an 18-yard run and finished it with a two-yard run, going in standing, and, with just over a minute and a half left in the game Mississinewa led for the first time, 27-20.
Manchester had one last chance, but Funk blitzed freshman defensive back Brad Pavey on two consecutive plays, forcing Ness into an intentional grounding and an incompletion that ended the Squires’ drive.
“We couldn’t let the quarterback just have time to sit back; we had to bring pressure,” said Funk, “Plus, it worked out to our advantage because we were playing on the short side of the field so that was an easy blitz for him.”
The Indians will travel to Maconaquah next Friday.
“I’m proud of our kids; I can’t emphasize that enough,” said Funk, “This was team football and a team win. Tomorrow we are going to wake up and get ready for Maconaquah.”
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