Manchester Spoils Whitko’s Homecoming With WinSOUTH WHITLEY – On Friday night, Manchester spoiled Whitko’s homecoming festivities with a 14-0 win in a Three Rivers Conference football matchup on the strength of an unbending defense.
After a mostly uneventful first half, barring a lost fumble by each team, Manchester senior Tyler Andritsch picked off sophomore Whitko quarterback Ethan Schuh in the endzone late in the second quarter. The Squires then mounted an 82-yard drive that cumulated in a two-yard touchdown run by sophomore Braxton Ream with 3:30 remaining in the period. They held their 7-0 lead into the half.
The teams’ defenses stymied their opponents until midway through the fourth quarter when Manchester senior Devin Marcum punched in a score from five yards out to make the score 14-0.
With six minutes to go in the quarter, Whitko moved swiftly down the field and put themselves in position to cut the deficit in half. However, a fumble inside the 10-yard line put a damper on their momentum.
After forcing a punt, Whitko again marched down the field behind a flurry of big plays. With a minute and a half to go and the ball on the eight-yard line, though, Manchester’s defense tightened up again when it mattered most and sacked Schuh on consecutive dropbacks to force a turnover on downs.
“Our D-line played great tonight,” said Manchester head coach Greg Miller. “That was our first shutout in a long time. We put pressure on them all night. We tackled better than we have been, we ran better… the guys just played a really solid game.”
Miller continued to say that the team needed to focus on executing better at the end of games.
“We gave up some long pass plays at the end there,” he said, “but I’m proud of how they buckled down and kept them out of the endzone.”
Although the team only had one win going into the night, Miller mentioned that the team mantra the past week had been, “It’s not the beginning that matters - it’s the ending we’re creating.”
Despite playing arguably their closest game of the season, Whitko head coach Phil Jensen was not pleased with his team’s mistakes.
“Like always, we played hard and were right there with them through the second, and today we were with them through the third,” Jensen said, “but we can’t keep making those mistakes at the end. That fumble right at the endzone can’t happen.”
Whitko continued an unfortunate string of games where they played their opponents closely through the opening half but were unable to keep the game close in the second.
The Wildcats (0-7, 0-6 TRC) will travel to Northfield Friday while Manchester (2-5, 2-4 TRC) hosts Tippecanoe Valley, both in conference contests.
