Warsaw worked its way back from the brink of a blowout to tie NorthWood in the third quarter, but the Tigers couldn’t quite get over the top on Senior Night Friday. NorthWood’s Braxton Linville caught a 15-yard touchdown pass from Trey Bilinski with 14.6 seconds left in the game to take a 21-14 Northern Lakes Conference win over the Tigers at Fisher Field. Both squads had a chance to put distance between each other, but penalties and turnovers were a bugaboo. The Panthers had an interception, lost a fumble and committed 12 penalties for 105 yards. Warsaw had one fewer turnover, but still had eight flags for 75 yards. After the opening kickoff, the Panthers drove 80 yards in nine plays on their first possession, capped by a 15-yard pass from Bilinski to Bronson Yoder. In the second quarter, Warsaw, driving into a moderate breeze, opted to go for it on 4th-and-11 from the Panther 25. The snap sailed over junior quarterback Michael Jensen’s head, and after being batted around, the Tigers’ Rob Sullivan recovered the ball at midfield. Still, the Panthers had the ball. NorthWood expanded its lead three plays later. Bailey Gessinger ran down the east sideline for 48 yards to the Tiger 2-yard line, and Tanner Cleveland punched it in from there, making it 14-0. The Tigers cut the lead in half when they capped a 10-play, 61-yard drive with Jensen hitting Jeremy David for a 4-yard touchdown on 4th-and-2 with 42 seconds left before halftime. The tie was forged when Jensen found senior Riley Rhoades for a 20-yard touchdown late in the third quarter, setting up the dramatic ending. “We fought through a lot of things – a lot of self-inflicted things, a lot of things NorthWood did to us. We could have got blown out of that game early,” said Warsaw head coach Phil Jensen. “Our kids stuck with it; we got the good score right before half. Our defense got us a turnover, and we got another score and got it tied up. “We had opportunities, we were driving and we fumbled; things like that that you can’t do. And then once we fumbled, they make the drive to win the football game and they made the plays at the end to win it.” Early on, the Panthers controlled the line of scrimmage with blitzes, and the Tigers never really established much of a running game. They went to short, quick passes to move the ball downfield. “We made some plays. Don’t get me wrong; we had some good offensive moments. But still, you have to make the plays to win the game at the end, especially when you haven’t played well for most of the game, and that was us tonight. “Early on, we couldn’t block ‘em, and Michael (Jensen) was getting killed. Then, when we got things settled down we started finding our receivers and we did some things. But we don’t sustain things well enough and long enough to win a big game like this.” Gessinger was the game’s leading rusher, gaining 109 yards on 18 carries, with Linville leading all receivers with 11 catches for 112 yards. Bilinski had 156 yards passing on the night for the Panthers, now 5-3 overall and 3-3 in the NLC. They host Plymouth in the regular season finale. Rhoades had 10 catches for 76 yards, while David caught four passes for 43 yards for the Tigers, who fell to 4-4 overall and 3-3 in the conference. Warsaw travels to Concord on Friday, where the Minutemen will attempt to complete an undefeated NLC season.
