A portion of Warsaw's fans stuck around for the fireworks display after the Tigers' homecoming football game against Northern Lakes Conference foe Northridge Friday night.
By that time, however, the visiting Raiders had already put together enough fireworks of their own to beat Warsaw 19-7 at Fisher Field.Northridge, which had lost 16 of the previous 17 meetings with Warsaw, used a six-yard touchdown run from junior Tyler Priem to break a scoreless tie in the second quarter, opened the second half with an 86-yard kicoff return for a touchdown by junior Garrett Yoder and capped the evening with a 27-yard interception return for a score by junior Thomas Nowak.
"We've come a long way," said Northridge coach Jonathan Kirkton, who now owns a career mark of 14-52 in his seventh year with the Raiders. "When you lose that many times to a team, it's a big win. We were close to Plymouth last week, and this week we beat Warsaw. That's big for us."
The Raiders, whose best record in the last 15 years is a 4-7 mark in 1998, improved to 3-2 overall on the season and 2-1 in the Northern Lakes Conference.
"It's been a while since we've had two wins," Kirkton said of his team picking up another NLC victory.
After Friday night's action, Concord sits atop the NLC with a 4-0 record, while Plymouth is 3-0 and NorthWood and Northridge are 2-1.
Elkhart Memorial is 2-2, while Goshen, Warsaw and Wawasee are all 0-3 in conference action.
With the loss to Northridge, the Tigers fell 1-4 overall with their fourth-straight loss.
Going back to last season, Warsaw has won just one of its last eight games.
"It comes down to scoring points," said Warsaw coach Phil Jensen, who entered Friday's contest with a career record of 9-0 against Northridge. "Bottom line, we haven't been scoring points. We've got to figure out a way to put points on the board."
At Elkhart Memorial last week, the Warsaw defense didn't give up a touchdown, yet the Tigers fell 9-7 to the Crimson Chargers, who kicked the game-winning field goal with two seconds remaining.
Against the Raiders Friday, the Warsaw defense gave up just seven points, but the Tigers' sputtering offense and the Raiders' electrifying kickoff return and interception return added up to another loss.
"I didn't think our defense played that bad," said Jensen. "We didn't give up a touchdown last week, and we only gave up one touchdown this week. We just haven't put points on the board. We made costly mistakes at crucial times, and you can't give up a kickoff return for a touchdown like that."
Trailing 12-0, Warsaw made things interesting when senior running back Andy Conrad put the Tigers on the board with a two-yard touchdown run with 5:27 remaining in the game.
Warsaw's defense held, forcing the Raiders to punt on their next drive, but Nowak intercepted a Justin Clemens pass on the first play of Warsaw's next drive and returned it 27 yards to paydirt.
With just 51 seconds remaining, Nowak's touchdown gave the Raiders a 19-7 lead and put things out of reach for the Tigers.
"We couldn't seem to put them away," Kirkton said of Conrad's touchdown and then Warsaw's defensive stand in the fourth quarter. "Warsaw never gave up."
While Warsaw's offense only put seven points on the board, the Tigers were able to move the ball the majority of the game.
Warsaw finished the game with 151 yards on the ground and 141 through the air.
"If your defense holds their offense to seven points, you ought to win the game," said Jensen. "If you look at what we did from the 20 (yard line) to the 20, we were able to move the ball. We just had critical mistakes at crucial times."
After much of its offense had been generated on the ground this season, Warsaw went to the air more Friday night.
Clemens completed 10 of 32 passes for 141 yards and threw one touchdown.
A big bright spot in Warsaw's passing attack Friday was senior receiver Zack Linky, who finished the game with six catches for 78 yards.
Linky, who entered the game with 10 catches for 153 yards in the first four games, produced a first down for the Tigers with all six of his catches, including a 30-yard reception late in the second quarter.
Classmate Lucas Denlinger made two receptions for 32 yards, while sophomore Zach Rooney had one catch for 27 yards.
On the ground, Clemens led the way with 15 carries for 78 yards, while Conrad carried 14 times for 74 yards.
For Northridge, senior workhorse fullback Carsten Miller rushed 25 times for 119 yards.
Senior quarterback Andrew Hooley completed 3 of 6 passes for 27 yards. He finished the game with one interception, a pass that was picked off by Matt Abbitt.
Northridge hosts NLC foe NorthWood Friday, while Warsaw travels to conference rival Goshen.
"Our kids are trying, they really are," said Jensen. "I'm not going to fault them, nobody should fault them, they're trying. This isn't the season they envisioned, this isn't what they dreamed of. But this is where we are. I'm not going to give up on them. No matter what, we still have to go to Goshen Friday night. We have to come back, get up when the sun comes up and keep fighting."
