Beats the South Shelby Cardinals, 28-14
They won the game they were supposed to lose.
The night of October 11, the Centralia Panthers Football Team rolled north to Shelbina and beat the South Shelby Cardinals, 28-14.
Despite the injuries, despite the naysayers, the Panthers defeated the undefeated.
“That was a big win for us,” Tyler Forsee, Centralia Panthers head football coach, said afterward. “I’m proud of our kids, proud of their effort, proud of their execution. That was a lot of fun.”
They scored early in the first quarter, leveraging an Anthony Ford interception in the south in a six-yard Ethan Ross touchdown run down the south side of Cardinal field.
Deke Maenner followed that by drilling through South Shelby’s line for the two-point conversion.
“Yes it was,” Forsee said when asked if the plan was to find a way to score early and often against the formerly undefeated Cardinals. “We preached all week, toughness… It’s a choice for the most part. But again, you just need to be tough and our kids answered that call. They were tough on both sides of the ball.”
Centralia’s iron wall defense held off he Cardinals and Ross scored again, a 56-yard run followed by a Charlie Robinson conversion to make it 16-0.
Centralia carried that lead into halftime.
Neither team scored in the third, though Centralia threatened and saw Ross crossing the goal line only to be called back on a holding penalty against Centralia.
Both teams lit the fuse in the fourth.
South Shelby scored first off a 29-yard pass, but failed the conversion.
“I thought we would have more success with the run than we did,” South Shelby Head Coach Adam Gunterman said. “We had a really hard time with their defensive front and got pushed around a little bit.”
Centralia responded by taking a Chase Kempker handoff 37 yards for a touchdown.
South Shelby counter-punched with another touchdown pass, a 20-yard bullet, followed by a hotly-contested conversion, making the score 22-14 Centralia.
The Panthers wanted more, and they took more.
With 2:52 left in the game, Ross took a handoff and again, down the south sideline, ran 57 yards for a touchdown, for the night’s final score making it 28-14, Centralia.
Ross led Centralia in rushing yards with 215 yards in 17 attempts with three touchdowns. Robinson rushed for 25 yards in six attempts with one touchdown. Suddarth was 17 in seven.
Overall Centralia took 285 yards in the game, 276 rushing and nine passing.
Centralia’s defense held South Shelby to 202 yards, 62 rushing and 140 passing.
Suddarth led the defense in total tackes with 10, seven solos and three assisted.
Ian Tuggle, who Gunterman singled out “as a force” had nine tackles, six solo and three assisted. Maenner had seven total, five solos and two assisted.
Editor’s note, this article will be updated later this weekend. For the full article, see next week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard.