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Local Sports from The CourierSaturday, November 24, 2012Division VI State Semifinals: McComb's valiant comeback falls short in 3 OTsstaff writer WAPAKONETA -- McComb bottled up Marion Local sophomore tailback Jacy Goettemoeller for much of Friday's Division VI semifinal football game at Wapakoneta's Harmon Field. Goettemoeller broke free for touchdowns in the second and third overtimes, however, and his 8-yard scoring run in the third extra period led Marion Local to a 34-28 win over the Panthers. Marion Local (12-2) returns to defend its Division VI state championship at 11 a.m. next Friday against Newark Catholic, a 38-22 winner over Mogodore in the other semifinal. McComb ends its season at 13-1. Marion Local's winning touchdown came after a spirited comeback by McComb. Little went right for the Panthers in the first half and McComb trailed 21-0 midway through the third quarter. Finally, a McComb drive reached the end zone. Dalton Buck threw a 25-yard pass to Clay Dysert to key a nine-play, 68-yard drive. Jerry Brown capped it with an 8-yard run midway through the third quarter. A couple more McComb drives went nowhere, and the Panthers were running out of time. Buck, with 4:56 left in the fourth quarter, found Brown on a fly pattern for an 89-yard score and it was 21-14 Marion Local. All McComb needed was a stop, and the defense got one. McComb took over on its 32 with 3:28 left and drove into the end zone behind the arm of Buck. Through the game, Buck was picked off three times and lost a fumble as McComb and Marion Local each turned the ball over five times. Buck, though, threw for 297 yards after halftime and when he hit Cody Wilson on a 15-yard scoring pass with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter, the game was tied at 21-21. "These kids all year, they're fighters. They did the same thing last week against Delphos St. John's," McComb coach Kris Alge said. "We told them, keep fighting. We're the Panthers. We had a goal of 720 (minutes of football to win a state title)." Neither team scored in the first overtime. In the second extra period, Marion Local went ahead in two plays as Goettemoeller scored on a 14-yard sweep to the right side. The Panthers responded. On fourth-and-1 from the 11, Brown took a snap out of the wildcat formation, faked a dive into the line and tossed a jump pass to Dysert for the tying touchdown. McComb got the ball to start the third overtime and immediately ran into trouble. A Buck pass to Dysert was complete, but Brown was called for an illegal pick. The offensive interference call was a 15-yard penalty and a loss of down. "Offensive interference is a killer in high school football," Marion Local coach Tim Goodwin said. "It's way too punitive. Fifteen yards and a loss of down? That's too much. That's hard to recover from." McComb eventually worked its way back to fourth-and-11 at the 21, but a Buck pass near the goal line fell incomplete. Marion Local came back with three straight runs by Goettemoeller. The first two each picked up 6 yards, and the third put the Flyers back into the state championship game. "They had all the momentum going into the overtime," Goodwin said. "I knew our kids would play, and they did. "It was a strange game, back and forth. As time went on, it just got tenser and tenser. I was just hoping we'd make a play on defense to end the sucker, but we just had to hold on." Goettemoeller had 35 yards on five carries in the overtime periods and finished with 95 yards on 20 rushes. Quarterback Adam Bertke was 16 of 24 passing for 200 yards and was intercepted four times. Buck finished 33 of 50 for 364 yards for McComb. After a shaky first half by the quarterback that mirrored his team's play in the first 24 minutes, he came through in the second half. "I think it was the tempo," Alge said of McComb going to a no-huddle look in the second half. "I think we tried to outsmart ourselves and got a little too fancy running the ball in the first half." It was a turnover-fest for McComb in the first half, as Bertke intercepted Buck's first pass of the game and returned it 25 yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 Marion Local lead. A McComb fumble set up the Flyers' second score. Bertke threw a pass into the end zone, where the Flyers' Mark Thobe and McComb's Brown each tipped the ball. Marion Local's Cory Homan stayed with the play and caught the ball for a 39-yard scoring play. McComb's next drive ended with a punt, and the ball was snapped over Brown's head for a 23-yard loss. The Flyers took over on the McComb 15 and drove in from there with a Goettemoeller 1-yard run for a 21-0 second-quarter lead. "I'm proud of these guys, they went down fighting and just came up a little bit short," Alge said. "I felt good going into overtime. I thought we were going to come away with a win. "Our kids are fighters. We knew 21 down, we could come back. Hey, great season. Nothing to be ashamed of." Marion Local 7 14 0 0 0 7 6--34 McComb 0 0 7 14 0 7 0--28 First Quarter ML -- Bertke 25 interception return (Kramer kick) Second Quarter ML -- Homan 39 pass from Bertke (Kramer kick) ML -- Goettemoeller 1 run (Kramer kick) Third Quarter McC -- Brown 8 run (Beeson kick) Fourth Quarter McC -- Brown 89 pass from Buck (Beeson kick) McC -- C. Wilson 15 pass from Buck (Beeson kick) Second Overtime ML -- Goettemoeller 14 run (Kramer kick) McC -- Dysert 11 pass from Brown (Beeson kick) Third Quarter ML -- Goettemoeller 18 run ML McC First Downs 19 21 Rushes-yards 47-170 27-28 Passing Yards 200 375 Comp-Att-Int 16-24-4 34-51-3 Punts-Avg. 3-35.0 3-36.3 Fumbles-Lost 1-1 4-2 Penalties-Yards 7-75 5-48 individual statistics rushing -- Marion Local, Goettemoeller 20-95, Bertke 25-72, Wilker 1-3, Keller 1-0. McComb, Brown 13-27, C. Wilson 5-22, Buck 8-2, team 1-(-23). passing -- Marion Local, Bertke 16-24-4-200. McComb, Buck 33-50-3-364; Brown 1-1-0-11. receiving -- Marion Local, Wilker 8-99, Thobe 3-27, Goettemoeller 2-22, Homan 1-39, Keller 1-6. McComb, Brown 11-185, C. Wilson 10-65, Schroeder 5-33, Dysert 5-83, Ishmael 1-2. Radick: 419-427-8405, tedradick@thecourier.com Subscribe to The Courier. |
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