PARKERSBURG — In the Class AAAA debut Friday night at Stadium Field for host Parkersburg, the Big Reds of head coach Matt Kimes played into Saturday following a two-hour weather delay and came up short to Morgantown, 24-13.
The Big Reds, who play next Friday at South Charleston, held the Mohigans to just one first-half first down and a quartet for the affair, but the hosts had a trio of red zone attempts that resulted in no points.
“I don’t care what the stats are,” said MHS boss Sean Biser, whose team didn’t complete a pass and went ahead for good on a guard trap play where Carsin Lawhun sprinted 66 yards to paydirt at 8:45 of the third to make it 17-10. “All it says is ‘W’ at the end of that thing.
“It doesn’t matter, so we’ll take it. I don’t really know what to say. It was ugly in every possible way, but we got the win and anytime you get the win that’s all that really matters. We just made plays when we had to make plays.”
Parkersburg’s first drive of the season to start the tilt resulted in three first downs and a trip to the red zone, but Cole Sisk’s 32-yard field goal attempt was wide right.
Adam Elder had a key tackle for loss on third down where he stopped Mohigan Remi Hawkins for a 3-yard loss.
The Big Reds’ second trip to the red zone featured them having the ball first-and-goal at the nine, but Quinton Wright’s 30-yard field goal attempt was blocked.
“We’re breaking in a bunch of new guys and it showed tonight at times,” admitted coach Kimes, who watched Cooper Cancade complete 25 of 40 for 200 yards in his first career start, while tailback Jakel Shelton finished with 24 totes and 81 stripes before leaving the game late due to injury.
“We had some special teams blunders early on. We didn’t capitalize on our red zone opportunities, which I thought we were doing a better job of that this year, so we have to go back to the drawing board a little bit and see what we’re doing in the red zone and see if there’s something we can change up and give ourselves a little bit better opportunity for success down there, but they are a good football team.”
Morgantown finally broke the scoreless deadlock with 5:48 remaining before intermission when West Virginia University commit Aidan Stire was true on a 47-yard field goal.
Disaster struck for the Big Reds on the next series as the punt snap to Sisk wasn’t handled and resulted in a 13-yard loss.
AJ Thomas, who finished with 13 carries for a game-high 123 yards, took the handoff on the first play of the drive. Although he was bottled up in the middle, the senior bounced it outside to the right and it was 10-0 just 38 seconds later.
Parkersburg, which held a 326-198 advantage in total yards, managed to matriculate down the field and got on the board when Wright booted a 37-yard field goal as time expired.
MHS, which welcomes in Bridgeport next Friday, fumbled the second-half kickoff as Big Red Tyler Shahan recovered.
A nine-yard Cancade completion on third down to Zane Lewis gave PHS a first-and-goal at the seven as Shelton eventually scored from the one to make it a 10-all affair at the 9:10 mark following Wright’s extra point.
Morgantown then got the huge scoring jaunt from Lawhun on the Mohigans’ next offensive snap.
PHS drove down the field and had it first-and-10 at the 13, but a sack by Brady Savage forced the red and white into a third-and-long. The Big Reds had to settle for a 27-yard field goal by Wright, which cut the deficit to 17-13. The two-hour delay occurred during that drive.
Coach Kimes’ program put together a solid drive early in the fourth and had it first-and-goal at the nine. However, Rhys Wells had a key tacke for loss and Thomas stopped Ethan Jones for a 2-yard loss on fourth-and-goal from the 2.
Despite forcing a punt, the Big Reds fumbled the ball on second-and-10 from the MHS 23 as Thomas was there for the recovery.
Two plays later Thomas got loose for a 69-yard scoring burst where he broke several tackles and made a nifty cutback at the 20 as he darted to the end zone to cap the scoring.
“They are well coached and physical,” admitted Kimes, who had Tytan Parsons (6-54) lead the PHS receivers. “They took advantage of our mistakes and that’s what good teams do. We were up and down the field all night between the 20s. Just didn’t finish drives.
“Maybe that’s just being young and inexperienced and got to figure out how to finish. We’re banged up. It was a physical game and lots of guys out, but I’ve been talking all year about how I like our depth, so it’s really going to be tested these next couple of weeks.”
Lawhun finished with 73 ground yards on three rushes.
“We let them go down the field. Hats off to them,” said coach Biser. “I told everybody going in their offense is really good. Coach does a really good job of spreading the ball out and screens everywhere.
“Our guys knew that and in the middle of the field there’s a lot of space to operate. You get closer, it condenses everything and we were able to make some plays.”
By JAY W. BENNETT/Parkersburg News and Sentinel
BOX SCORE
Morgantown 24, Parkersburg 13
MHS (1-0) 0 10 7 7 — 24
PHS (0-1) 0 3 10 0 — 13
M: Aidan Stire 47 field goal 5:48, 2nd
M: AJ Thomas 7 run (Stire kick) 5:10, 2nd
P: Quinton Wright 37 field goal 0:00, 2nd
P: Jakel Shelton 1 run (Wright kick) 9:10, 3rd
M: Carsin Lawhun 66 run (Stire kick) 8:48, 3rd
P: Wright 27 field goal 1:17, 3rd
M: Thomas 69 run (Stire kick) 4:05, 4th
Team stats
MHS: First downs: 4; Rushes-yards: 21-198; Passing yards: 0; Total yards: 198; Passing: 0-3-0; Punts-average: 4-23.8; Fumbles-lost: 2-1; Penalties-yards: 6-43
PHS: First downs: 20; Rushes-yards: 42-126; Passing yards: 200; Total yards: 326; Passing: 25-40-0; Punts-average: 1-10; Fumbles-lost: 1-1; Penalties-yards: 5-34
Individual stats
MHS: Rushing: Matthew Hennige 1-(-6), AJ Thomas 13-123, Remi Hawkins 2-2, Rhys Wells 2-6, Carsin Lawhun 3-73; Passing: Hennige 0-3-0, 0 yards
PHS: Rushing: Team 1-(-13), Cooper Cancade 6-29, Ethan Jones 9-9, Jakel Shelton 24-81, Sylas Cheuvront 2-20; Passing: Cancade 25-40-0, 200 yards; Receiving: Zane Lewis 3-21, Preston Riffle 1-11, Hunter Leavitt 2-12, Tytan Parsons 6-54, Brady Thorn 2-25, Shelton 4-34, Cheuvront 1-4, Devin Widman 1-15, Jones 3-10, Austin Craven 2-14
