Warsaw Football: Minutemen Outscore Tigers
WARSAW – The Warsaw football team may have lost something much more valuable than just a game Friday night.
The Tigers, who dropped a painful 45-38 shootout to Concord, also saw quarterback Michael Jensen injured late in the game.
Senior signal caller Jensen, who threw four touchdown passes and ran for another score in the regular-season and Northern Lakes Conference finale at Fisher Field, injured his left elbow while being tackled with less than a minute left in the contest.
Warsaw, which drops to 5-4 overall and finishes at 4-3 in the NLC, is off until hosting Carroll (6-3) on Oct. 28 in a Class 6-A first-round sectional game.
Concord improves to 6-3 overall and goes to 5-2 in the NLC. The Minutemen finish in a tie for second place with Goshen in the final league standings. Goshen beat Wawasee 41-34 Friday night. NorthWood pounded Plymouth 43-12 to go 7-0 in league play.
“I don’t know,” said Warsaw coach Phil Jensen when asked about the injury to his senior leader and also his son. “It’s his left elbow. We’ll have to wait and see.”
The younger Jensen was being attended to by team physician Dr. Tom Krizmanich on the Warsaw bench at game’s end.
The Tigers simply could not score enough points to win this one.
Warsaw’s defense, which was shorthanded due to injuries to key performers Lane McClone and AJ Villarreal, gave up 470 yards in the back-and-forth, up-and-down the field scoring fest.
Concord junior quarterback Jack Lietzan ran for 134 yards. Junior running back Dominick DeBroka ran for 115 yards and two touchdowns, including the game winner on a 20-yard scamper with just 1:21 to play in the game. DeBroka also caught a short pass from Damien Jackson on a fake punt play and turned it into a 55-yard backbreaker of a touchdown in the third quarter.
“Concord is good and they have a lot of weapons,” said coach Jensen. “Obviously, we were hurt by the injuries that we had with our defense. Their quarterback and running back were tremendous. Everyone is worried about Mitchell (Concord star receiver Cedric Mitchell) and those other two kids are just playing great for them. You try and take away one thing and they have something else. That quarterback is not very big, but he runs like a load.
“The fake punt was huge. We were going for the block. That was a killer.
“I probably panicked with my play calling near the end of the game with it tied. But, we were getting yards in chunks doing what we were doing. We also have to pass protect better than we did late in the game. That’s my fault.
“I love our kids. They played hard tonight. I’m not going to quit on them and they are not going to quit on each other. The bye week is a good thing for us right now. We need to regroup.”
Concord led 23-21 at halftime of the shootout. Jensen fired scoring strikes of 55 yards to Devin Street, 42 yards to D’Andre Street and 35 yards to Tristan Larsh in the opening half.
The third period saw the teams combine for 29 points in a scoring frenzy. Jensen raced in from eight yards out to give the Tigers a 28-23 lead just 1:14 into the second half. It was short-lived however as just 24 seconds later, star Cedric Mitchell grabbed a short slant route and raced for a 54-yard touchdown to give Concord a 31-28 lead. Warsaw answered less than a minute later as Jensen tossed a 49-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy David to put Warsaw ahead 35-31.
The play of the game came on the next Concord possession. With Concord in punt formation, Warsaw brought the rush and Jackson calmly hit DeBroka on a 55-yard scoring play.
The Tigers tied the game with 9:20 left when senior standout Andrew Mevis drilled a program record tying 51-yard field goal to make it 38-38. Mevis’ boot, which had plenty of distance, tied Jake Rogers school record. Rogers made a 51-yard field goal at Concord in 2005. Mevis just missed wide on a 54-yard field goal try with 3:42 to play and the game tied at 38-38.
“Andrew just did a great job,” emphasized Jensen. “He was big all night for us. Making that field goal and not allowing Mitchell to return a kickoff or a punt.”
Concord came up with a pair of interceptions late in the game. First, Mitchell pilfered a Jensen pass with just 1:27 left to set up DeBroka’s game winning run. Xavier Halliburton then had a pick with 48.7 seconds to play to seal the win. Jensen, who was hurt on the play, was under heavy pressure on both of the late interceptions.
Warsaw finished with 411 total yards versus the porous Concord defense. Jensen was 12-22 passing for 257 yards. Will McGarvey had 18 rushes for 163 yards. David led the receiving corps with five catches for 98 yards.
Mitchell, who has committed to Bowling Green, only had three catches, but two went for touchdowns. The explosive kick returner did not get to return a kick all night thanks to the tremendous punting and kickoff efforts of Mevis.
Concord junior Josh Gorball drilled a 46-yard field goal for the first points of the game. The kick was his 13th field goal of the season, a program record. Gorball is also the goalie for the No. 17 Concord boys soccer team that will play No. 5 Penn in a Class 2-A regional final contest Saturday night in South Bend.
Mason Faas led the Tigers with 12 tackles and David had 10. Zach Riley had two interceptions.
Concord, which has beaten Warsaw in nine of their last 11 meetings, will play at No. 1 Fort Wayne Snider (9-0) in a Class 5-A sectional game on Oct. 28.