Clayton Cook dives for his second of four touchdown receptions on the night. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – Football is a team sport. One player cannot lead a team to victory on his own. It takes 11 players on both sides of the ball to produce a winning result under the lights on any given Friday night.

Wawasee may have played its best game as a team all season as it made a statement against Plymouth with a 52-35 victory Friday night in Syracuse.

While it took a team full of Warriors to bring down the No. 13 ranked team in 4A, one Wawasee player left Plymouth head coach John Barron with an impression that will not soon go away.

“Clayton Cook, he’s pretty good,” stated a disgruntled Barron.

Cook, a Wawasee junior, torched the Plymouth secondary for 12 receptions, 227 yards and four touchdowns.

“We tried to double him (Cook) when we could. They went to him every time they needed a play and we did not do enough to stop him. He’s a good player,” Barron added about the Warrior receiver.

While Cook turned heads on all of his scoring plays, one that might keep Barron up at night was Cook’s first of two fourth quarter scores.

With a 38-27 lead and just over 10 minutes to play in the game, the Warrior offense lined up for a play. Just before the snap Barron could be heard yelling to his defense “It’s going to Cook!” The good news for the Rockies head coach was that he was correct, the bad news was that it did not matter.

Cook caught the ball on a short route and turned on the jets, outrunning the Plymouth defense for a 66-yard score to give Wawasee a commanding 45-27 lead.

While Cook was the finisher on most of the scoring play for Wawasee, they all started with quarterback Gage Reinhard. The junior signal-caller carved up the Plymouth defense with 321 yards and five scores through the air and even added a rushing touchdown to his stat line. Reinhard’s second scoring strike of the day was to sophomore Sam Clark who hauled in a 44-yard pass to give Wawasee a 14-13 halftime lead.

Wawasee found itself in a 21-14 hole after a fumble set Plymouth up for an easy score to start the second half. The Warriors responded by forcing three turnovers of their own and would run-off 24 unanswered points to take a 38-21 lead.

Wawasee’s Brandin McCulloch was one of the star’s of the second half as he ran for a 20-yard score and helped chew up a lot of clock on the home stretch for Wawasee. The senior finished his night with 28 carries for 139 yards behind an undersized offensive line that dominated the trenches for most of the game. As a team Wawasee racked up 501 yards of total offense.

On the defensive side of the ball, it was the same story, the Warriors won the battle in the trenches. The Warriors defensive line gave up virtually nothing inside after the first quarter and set the tone for the rest of the defense. Wawasee forced six turnovers (two interceptions, four fumbles), tallied five sacks and blocked a kick.

Warrior head coach Josh Ekovich was blown away by the performance his team gave on Friday night, “I kept reminding these guys all week about last year’s game where we lost 55-14. For them to come out tonight and play this way, I really don’t even know what to say. I’m speechless.

“I want them to enjoy this. This is a great win. There is no reason not to be excited about this win. But we also have to stay focused and get ready for Warsaw starting tomorrow.”

Wawasee (3-3, 2-2) will travel to Warsaw next week and battle the Tigers for the Traveling ‘W’ trophy. Wawasee has had bragging rights for the past three seasons over its cross-county rival. Ekovich says it is a big rivalry and that his boys should have no problem getting excited for the game. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. at Warsaw High School.