Lakers stave off Falcons in OT
Complimentary football propelled Indian Lake Friday to an overtime victory over visiting Graham 13-7 in a Central Buckeye Conference Mad River division game.
The Lakers (4-2, 1-0) took the lead in the late stages of the first half on the strength of a blocked punt recovered in the end zone for a special teams touchdown.
A fumble forced by the defense at the 1-yard line in overtime just as it looked like Graham (0-6, 0-1) was going to take its first lead of the game helped set up the walk-off touchdown.
Noah Shirk’s 1-yard TD run in overtime won the game for Indian Lake after the Falcons managed to tie the game at 7-7 with 11:43 left in the fourth quarter.
With less than a minute to go in the first half, Indian Lake punted the ball near the Graham 20-yard line. The Falcons attempted to run out the clock, but Indian Lake used its timeouts to force the Falcons to have to attempt a punt on fourth down. A personal foul penalty assessed against the Graham sideline pushed the Falcons back to the shadow of their own goal line.
The snap back to the punter was high and fumbled and the Lakers recovered in the end zone to take a 7-0 lead at halftime.
Tigers’ ground-and-pound rushing attack downs Jets
West Liberty-Salem overcame a halftime deficit Friday and held on late for a 24-21 victory over Northeastern to open Ohio heritage Conference play.
Josh Wilcoxon scored three times including the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter for WL-S as the Tigers improve to 4-1 overall and 1-0 in the OHC. Northeastern drops to 4-2, 0-1.
The Tigers scored first Friday as part of a back-and-forth first two quarters that saw the lead change hands three times.
Gideon Cole connected on a 24-yard field goal in the first quarter to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead.
Northeastern answered with a 21-yard touchdown pass with seconds to go in the first quarter from Diezel Taylor to Garrett Chadwell to give the Jets a 7-3 advantage.
The game continued to go back-and-forth in the second quarter, as the Tigers reclaimed the lead minutes before halftime. Wilcoxon scored his first TD of the night on a 23-yard run to put the Tigers ahead 10-3 following a successful PAT.
Northeastern regained the lead again before halftime on a 12-yard pass from Taylor to Luke Mefford, followed by a successful extra point, making it 14-10 at halftime.
Get the complete recap of Friday’s football coverage in the Examiner weekender