Wayne ends Minco's playoff hopes 28-13

Chuck Larsen
The Express-Star

MINCO October 28, 2006 11:14 am

— Wayne came into Minco for week nine with both teams hanging on by a thread for a possible fourth playoff spot. Three hours later, Wayne got back on the bus still alive after running off a 28-13 win in a battle between the two Bulldog teams.
Wayne took control of the game right out of the blocks. The visitors struck quickly, with senior quarterback Seth Larman going deep on the first play of the game for 69 yards and six points. Wideout Travis Wright found himself all alone on a Minco defensive breakdown and Larman made their hosts pay.
Larman then stripped Trevor Brassfield on Minco's second play of the game, saw daylight and was finally dragged down by Josh Overton at the Minco 13. In the shadow of their goalposts, the defense made a stand and Minco got the ball back on downs on their one-yard line.
Wayne's defense returned the favor, pinning them down and forcing Clay Dirickson to punt with his back to the goal line. Wayne got the ball back in good field position and started working their way downfield as the first quarter ended.
Larman found Wright again on a slant for a 22-yard strike and Wayne extended to a dozen a minute into the second quarter.
Cornerback Caleb Kennedy picked Overton off on Minco's first play from scrimmage and got to the nine before Jared Jensen brought him down. Larman ran the ball to the one, snuck it over then hit Kennedy for the two-pointer.
With nine minutes still left in the half it looked like Minco was done. They weren't.
Jensen toughed out about twenty hard yards on the return with a good second, third and fourth effort to set Minco up on their 44 then Brassfield got outside, turned upfield and was gone. Dwight Oaks split the uprights and Minco was on the board 20-7.
After forcing a punt, Minco took over again and ran the ball right at Wayne, gobbling up big chunks of yardage, but Brassfield lost the ball fighting through three tacklers at the Wayne fifteen.
Minco got the ball right back on Wayne's second play and made their guests pay.
Larman went deep but Mark Whalen picked him off and got the ball back to the Minco 43. With just a minute left Overton went up top, hitting David Daniel for twenty yards and Brassfield for ten, and Minco was suddenly at the Wayne 34. With twenty seconds left, Overton found Jensen open for another six.
Wayne blocked Oaks' PAT but Minco went to the locker room back in it at 20-13.
Minco almost broke it open twice in the defense-dominated third quarter…Overton on the opening kickoff return and a fifty-yarder by Jensen a possession later, but both drives stalled.
Wayne forced another deep punt and took over at the Minco 32. With under three minutes left in the third, they caught a break. Larman was flushed out of the pocket but found a seam and scrambled for 23 yards before Jensen caught him at the four.
Again the Minco defense stood, denying Wayne twice before switching ends for the fourth quarter. On third down and the first play of the quarter, though, Kennedy got through for the eventual winner. He ran the deuce and Wayne was up 28-13.
Neither team could get anything going offensively the rest of the way and Larman took a knee to close things out.
In spite of the loss, head coach Steve Justus was happy with his team's performance.
“Our kids came out and played with a lot of heart. We gave ourselves some chances but stubbed our toe a few times. I thought our kids played with a lot of intensity and that's what we asked them to do.”
The injury bug that doomed Minco last year raised its ugly head again last week and doomed them again.
“(Trevor) Brassfield was hurt all last week with a twisted ankle and Jacob Burchfield was going to fill in for him. He started taking reps, then on Wednesday he went and rolled his ankle over in practice.
“We had some kids have to fill in and they did a good job but we just weren't as sharp offensively as we could have been. Some of the kids we had to count on tonight didn't get as many reps as we would have wanted.
“It really hurt us when (Jared) Rumley went down. He's a big force for us and we were running him on the strong side.”
(Rumley was helped from the field late in the second half. The preliminary report was a strained MCL.)
Justus acknowledged the play of Wayne's senior, Seth Larman, who had such a huge role in the win.
“He's a good player and a good kid. He doesn't look like he's running real hard but he just keeps running through people. We saw him do it on film and he did it tonight. My hat's off to him and Wayne…they did a good job.”
Minco will honor their seniors next week, closing out the season at home with Maysville.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.