FORT WAYNE - For the Warsaw Tigers, Friday's Class 5A Sectional 3 football game at Fort Wayne North Side was a tale of two halves.
After playing a near-perfect first half, though, things went south for the Tigers in the third and fourth quarters, as they fell 27-16 to the host Redskins."We knew were were gonna have to play a near-perfect game, and in the first half we did that," said Warsaw coach Phil Jensen, whose team finished the season with a 1-9 record. "In the first half, defensively, North Side did some things differently than we expected. In the second half, they did what we expected them to. They ran what we lined up against all week in practice, and we just didn't get it done in the second half. I don't know what happened."
In the first 16 minutes of action, Warsaw didn't look like a team with just one win. The Tigers' offense didn't look like a unit that averaged just 14 points per game. And Warsaw's defense certainly didn't look like a group that was giving up nearly 29 points per contest.
Powered by a running game that produced 202 yards in the first half, the Tigers led 16-7 at halftime.
Things took a turn for the worse in the second half, as North Side's defense held the Tigers to just 80 yards of total offense in the third and fourth quarters.
En route to outscoring Warsaw 20-0 in the second half, the Redskins blocked a punt by the Tigers to set up touchdown that gave them a 20-16 lead with 6:20 remaining in the game, and then scored a defensive touchdown when Josh Slayton picked off a Jeremy Coppes pass and returned it 20 yards for a score less than a minute later.
"I don't know what the numbers are statistically, but they say when a team blocks a punt they win 85 percent of the time," said Jensen. "That was a big momentum shift. At that point, we're playing to win the game. It's fourth-and-3 and we jump offsides. We go to punt and we jump offides again. Then they block the punt. That was huge. It wasn't for a lack of effort or for not caring, the kids played hard, we're just not good enough to overcome mistakes like that."
After the two illegal procedure penalties on Warsaw, the Redskins' blocked punt gave the hosts the ball on the 50-yard line. Three plays later D.J. Neal scored on an 11-yard run, a play on which the Tigers looked to have stopped him for a loss before he reversed directions and broke a number of tackles.
North Side's two-point conversion attempt failed, but 58 seconds later Slayton's interception return for a touchdown put the finishing touches on the Redskins' fifth win of the season.
North Side, which has won its sectional opener in three straight seasons, improved to 5-5 and will play Summit Athletic Conference rival Snider (7-2) in a sectional semifinal game Friday.
Homestead (9-1) and Carroll (5-5) will meet in the other semifinal game.
The Tigers put the first points on the board, scoring on a 45-yard Scott Smyth field goal with 5:06 remaining in the first quarter.
North Side took a 7-3 lead with 11:41 to play in the second quarter when sophomore quarterback C.J. Jackson raced in from 56 yards out.
Warsaw junior Zach Rooney, small in stature at 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds, came up big for the Tigers when his 47-yard run put the visitors back on top with 3:23 to play in the first half.
With 20 second remaining in the opening half, Coppes found Keelan Simpson from two yards out, pushing Warsaw's advantage to 16-7 at intermission.
After rushing for 132 yards on 10 carries in the first half, Rooney finished the game with 151 yards on 14 attempts.
"We were getting good blocks, and he made some nice cuts," Jensen said of Rooney's impressive first-half performance. "Our gameplan was working well, and we were keeping them off-balance. I don't know what happened in the second half. We just didn't get the job done."
Tyler Adams added 60 yards on the ground on 16 carries for the Tigers, while Coppes carried the ball 15 times for 19 yards.
Coppes completed 4 of 15 passes for 42 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
For North Side, Jackson rushed for 133 yards on 12 carries, while Williams carried 10 times for 73 yards.
Jackson completed 3 of 11 passes for 39 yards.
"Their quarterback is good player," Jensen said of Jackson. "Credit North Side, they did what they had to do to win."
