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Panthers on the road at London

Thursday, 02 October 2008

The Miami Trace Panthers have only lost once ever in varsity football to the Madison Plains Golden Eagles.

Friday’s game might well have been the closest Madison Plains has come to beating the Panthers again as Miami Trace came away with a 21-19 win over the upstarts from Madison County.

“For as few a number of kids as they have, they’re an impressive football team,” Miami Trace head coach Mike Bernard said of the Eagles. “I’m just not sure how they get enough kids together to scrimmage or practice. Their kids played hard the entire time. Hats off to them; they’re an impressive team this year.”

Miami Trace took a 14-0 lead on the Golden Eagles and led 21-13 at the half. The Panthers were held scoreless in the second half while the defense may have bent, allowing one touchdown, but did not break as they had several important stands.

“The second half was a battle of field postition,” Bernard said. “We had three or four (defensive) stands inside our 10 or 15-yard line. They turned the ball over on downs several times, almost always leaving us with a long field in front of us.

“They finally scored on the fourth quarter, but the two-point pass was broken up by Colt Ward,” Bernard said. “That was a big play by our defense and Colt in particular.”

Now the Panthers return to Madison County for another SCOL game against another team that appears on the upswing with its program, the London Red Raiders.

Trying to get back to the glory days of the 1990s, the Red Raiders took a big step in that direction Friday as they nearly upset Clinton-Massie, losing 26-21.

Undefeated and ranked No. 10 in the state, Clinton-Massie had to come from behind to post the win.

The Falcon’s Logan McCormick intercepted a Justin Wolverton pass preventing a potential touchdown late in the game.

Clinton-Massie trailed in the game with 40 seconds to play.

“If you believe in yourself, you can do anything,” London head coach Bill Dennis said after the gut-wrenchingly close loss to Clinton-Massie. “I asked the kids to come out and fight and they fought. I can’t ask for any more than that.”

“London is a darn good football team,” Bernard said. “Offensively they are an explosive football team. All of their skill postition kids are seniors: the quarterback, fullback, tailback, both wide receivers and every single one of them is a good athlete.

“Offensively, they are a strong football team,” Bernard said. “Then you turn around and look at their defense and they’re getting after people on defense right now. They held Massie better than we held Massie.

“London is a good football team,” Bernard said. “They had some big plays against Massie. They were doing a nice job of stopping Massie’s offense for the better part of the game. I know our scouts were very impressed with London’s football team.

“What we have to do this week against London is go out and play solid, sound defense,” Bernard said. “We’ve got to try and avoid giving up the big play. They have several kids that can break a long play at any time.

“We’ve got to do a good job of maintaining our lanes,” Bernard said. “Not giving up big cutbacks; not giving them seams where they’re going to rip off 50 or 60 yards against us.

“Offensively, we’ve got to try and control the football and drive it down the field on them,” Bernard said. “They’re strong defensively, as well. This is going to be a big challenge for us this week. Everyone’s got to step it up a notch because this is one good football team we’re going up against Friday night.”

Ryan Garland led the Panthers with 12 tackles. Trevor Milstead had an interception and a fumble recovery and Nick Shears recovered a fumble for the Panthers.