John Glenn Falls In Defensive Slugfest
By: Joey Madore
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In playoff football every play is crucial to the out come of the game. It is where the best players step up and carry their teams on their back to gain a victory. On Friday night John Glenn took the trip to Indian Valley and looked to be the third Muskingum Valley League team to advance to the second round of the postseason.
John Glenn’s defense stymied the Braves high powered offense all night long and made a crucial stop on a fourth and one play that gave their offense the ball in enemy territory down by two with just three minutes left in the game. At this point the Little Muskies held all the momentum. It was time for one final drive to get the decisive score and win the game.
After Joseph Clifford picked up a first down on a screen pass, a holding penalty shot the Little Muskies in the foot and moved them back 10-yards. A couple plays later John Glenn went back to Clifford on another screen pass. He caught the pass, made a couple of guys miss before a swarm of Indian Valley defenders came in and punched the ball out and recovered it on the sideline.
With only 53 second left the Braves were able to just run out the clock and seal a 16-14 victory over John Glenn to move on to the next round.
John Glenn (7-4, 5-3) came into the game as the underdogs but battled until the very end and almost pulled off the upset over the third seeded Braves (10-1, 4-1). They were able to hold an offense that averaged 46.1 points per game during the regular season to just 16 on Friday night and shut out Indian Valley in the first half. It was the least amount of points that Indian Valley recorded so far this season. Despite the offense not putting up their usual numbers Indian Valley’s defense kept them in the game by also playing very soundly on that side of the ball.
The first half of Friday’s game was dominated by the defenses.
Both teams were unable to put points on the score board. The teams combined for five punts and John Glenn added two interceptions from Josh Conner and Ben Larson. Both teams went into the locker room with the score 0-0.
John Glenn’s offense would show the first sign of life midway through the third quarter.
Quarterback Parker Zachrich called his own number and burst into the second level and would out run all the Braves defenders for a 22-yard touchdown to put them up 7-0.
Indian Valley wouldn’t take long to respond. Cade Williams carried the load for the offense on the drive and cap the drive off with an 11-yard touchdown run. He would also run in the 2-point conversion to give the Braves an 8-7 advantage as the third quarter winded down.
Williams night was far from over though. On the next drive for Indian Valley, Williams got the snap, dusted through the entire defense, and went untouched for a 57-yard score. The Braves went for two again and converted to make it a two-score game at 16-7 with just over eight minutes to go in the game.
Parker Zachrich answered his counterpart on John Glenn’s issuing drive.
In just three minutes the Little Muskies made it just a one score game again as Zachrich broke the plain on a quarterback sneak to cut the deficit to 16-14.
John Glenn had one more crack at finding the game winning touchdown, but the Braves defense stood tall and forced the fumble that would lead them to the 16-14 victory.
With the loss John Glenn’s season came to an end Friday night, but they battled and left everything out on the field that night and were a couple plays away from pulling off the upset.
Indian Valley will have another home game against the seventh seeded Licking Valley who is coming off a 36-12 victory over Gallia.