IMA SPORTS

The Maumee football team took another big step towards the playoffs by holding off host Otsego in a 35-20 win on Friday.

The Panthers have won three straight games and five of six since starting the season 0-2, improving to 5-3 overall and 4-1 in the Northern Buckeye Conference. They’re tied with Eastwood for second in the conference, a half-game behind Genoa.

After the win over the Knights (3-5, 1-4 NBC), Maumee coach Evan Karchner reflected upon how far this team has come since its first scrimmage against Bowling Green in early August.

“We never knew who our team was going to be at the beginning of the season,” Karchner said. “Starting off with the BG scrimmage, we looked like superstars, then the Clay scrimmage kind of humbled us. It hurt our confidence, and I strongly believe that played a huge part in how our season started.

“We just never gave up on these guys. I know only one way to coach, and it’s to keep coaching and trying to get kids better.”

One of the biggest areas of growth has been in the running game, with the solidification of the offensive line and the maturation of junior running backs Cohen Jones and Travis Garrett Jr.

On Friday, Garrett took his turn with a career-high 104 rushing yards on 17 carries (6.1 yards per carry) and a touchdown. Jones added 63 yards and two scores as the Panthers totaled 175 yards on the ground.

In NBC play, Maumee has rushed for 893 yards, more than 50 yards per game better than their output in nonleague games.

What separated the Panthers from Otsego, though, was the passing game, where Maumee has weapons few NBC teams can match.

Quarterback Ben Kubicz had his fourth straight game without an interception, throwing for 243 yards and two touchdowns while completing 68 percent of his 19 attempts. He now has 1,519 yards and 19 TDs this season on 65-percent passing.

Eli Dodson posted his fourth 100-yard game of the year with five catches for 112 yards, including a 38-yard touchdown late in the first half that staked Maumee to a 21-0 halftime lead.

Will Kubicz added four catches for 96 yards, and Brock Heard caught a 10-yard TD in the third quarter to push the lead to 28-0.

“We’ve got to take advantage of that to get them in a position to win,” Karchner said. “Coach (Shane) Kinnee did a good job of putting in some passes that he knew would give Otsego some issues, and we had some wide-open touchdowns. … On the outside in most games, we’re going to have better guys than they do.”

The Panthers dominated for three quarters before the Knights mounted a late rally, scoring 20 points on three big plays — Keeghan Hutton’s 53-yard run, Grady Frank’s 76-yard rush on the next play, and Frank’s 72-yard TD pass to Toby Powell in the fourth.

Otsego finished with 334 yards, nearly two-thirds of which came on those three plays.

“We have a lot of new starters and a lot of juniors who are learning to play football,” Karchner said. “If you look at those big plays, they’re just missed tackles. We knew what we were doing, we were there to make plays. That will get better. We’ll keep working and getting better. Hopefully down the homestretch here when we need a big tackle, we’ll make it.”

The win pushed Maumee closer to a second straight playoff appearance. The Panthers are projected No. 11 in Division III, Region 10 when official rankings are released on Tuesday, according to JoeEitel.com.

If they can knock off two-time defending NBC champion Oak Harbor in Week 9, they’ll all but clinch a playoff spot. It won’t be easy — the Rockets have beaten Maumee in both meetings since joining the conference by a combined 107–24.

But as the past six weeks have shown, it wouldn’t be wise to count out a Maumee team that just keeps finding ways to win.

Photo courtesy of Pride of the Panthers
Reach IMA at insidemaumeeathletics@gmail.com