NorthWood Leaves No Doubt In Win Over TigersNAPPANEE – The Warsaw Tigers’ dream of a Northern Lakes Conference championship ended in nightmarish fashion Friday night at Jim Andrews Field. In a battle of the top two teams in the league, the Class 4A No. 2 NorthWood Panthers put on a dominant display both offensively and defensively, cruising to a 54-10 lead at halftime and a 61-24 win over the Tigers. NorthWood did most of its damage in the second quarter, outscoring the Tigers 38-0 in the 12-minute frame, as the Panthers improved to 8-0 overall, 6-0 in the NLC, and celebrated their first outright title since 1996. “NorthWood is a good football team. They’re very well-coached. They had a great gameplan, both offensively and defensively. Just a super effort on their part,” said Warsaw coach Phil Jensen, whose team fell to 5-3 overall, 4-2 in the NLC, and had their four-game win streak snapped. “We helped them. We kept making mistakes. But that doesn’t take anything away from them and what they’ve done with this season. That’s a heck of a football team.” NorthWood raced out to a 16-0 lead, only to see the Tigers claw back with a 21-yard touchdown pass from Michael Jensen to Devin Street and a 43-yard field goal by Andrew Mevis. The Tigers trailed just 16-10 at the end of the first quarter, but that’s as close as they were the rest of the night. NorthWood responded to Warsaw’s 10 points by scoring 45 unanswered points of its own, pushing the advantage to 61-10 when Brayton Yoder ran in from 60 yards out with 5:50 remaining in the third quarter. Sophomore backup running back Bryce Garner scored on touchdown runs of 1 and 27 yards for the Tigers in the last six minutes to account for the final score. “The magic is in the players, and they came with a different focus tonight,” NorthWood coach Nate Andrews, a former Panther standout himself, said of his team’s offensive explosion. “It was shocking to Warsaw, and then they had to fight and battle through some things. It was just a lot of fun tonight.” The Panthers tallied 493 yards of offense in the win, while holding the Tigers to 269. NorthWood senior quarterback Trey Bilinski completed 17 of 22 pass attempts for 265 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Brayton Yoder ran for 109 yards and three touchdowns on eight carries, and also had one reception for 29 yards and a score. Bronson Yoder caught five passes for 141 yards, and also tallied 43 yards and three touchdowns on 10 carries. Drew Minnich caught six passes for 70 yards and a touchdown. “We definitely had a different focus tonight,” said Andrews, for whose late father NorthWood’s field is named. “We’ve been practicing real well throughout the week, dating back to the last four weeks, and we hoped the fruits of our labor would show up, and they did tonight.” For Warsaw, Michael Jensen completed 7 of 24 pass attempts for 89 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. The senior signal caller threw just three interceptions in the previous seven games. The Tigers also turned the ball over twice Friday with fumbles. Warsaw’s Will McGarvey carried the ball 13 times for 72 yards, while Jensen tallied 57 yards on 12 carries. Devin Street led the Tigers in receiving yards with 51 on two catches. The Tigers now turn their attention to next week’s regular season finale, a matchup at Fisher Field with the Concord Minutemen, followed by a date with Carroll two weeks later in the Class 6A playoffs. “We’re going to be tested,” said Phil Jensen. “Our will, our heart, our guts, that’s all going to be tested. That’s what we talked about at halftime. We didn’t quit, we came out and fought in the second half. But it’s not going to be easy for the seniors to go work at Feed My Starving Children and face a crowd of people after this happens. But you know what, that’s part of growing up. Maybe that’s the lesson that we need to learn, we’ll see.” The Panthers, winners in 13 of their last 14 games dating back to last season, close the regular season with a trip to Plymouth. The Rockies are the only team to beat NorthWood in the last 14 games, as they topped the Panthers 37-29 in last year’s sectional final.
