Jackson spoils Miami Trace’s undefeated season, claims share of FAC title
By: Landon Levine
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WASHINGTON COURTHOUSE, Ohio (WOUB) – The Jackson Ironmen (7-2, 4-0 in FAC) visited the Miami Trace Panthers (8-1, 3-1 in FAC) in an important FAC matchup where the Ironmen came away 41-27.
The game started hot for the Panthers as on the very first offensive play, junior Julian Baker took his first carry 71 yards to the house. Immediately after, on the very first defensive play for the Panthers, the pass was picked off. Senior Cooper Enochs took his first carry of the game all the way with a 26-yard touchdown.
Jackson answered back nicely with a 3-yard rushing touchdown by senior Charlie Woodard, and right after forced a turnover of its own, forcing a fumble in opposing territory, and set themselves up nicely with first-and-goal to end the first quarter, Miami Trace up 14-7.
Two plays into the second quarter, senior Bodhi Wolford took it in for a 1-yard rushing touchdown to tie the game up at 14. Jackson’s defense came up with another big stop, and after a methodical drive, senior Ryan Seimetz would drag defenders into the end zone for a 24-yard rushing touchdown.
The Panthers weren’t going to quit just yet. After a very well executed two-minute drill, Baker would find the end zone for this second score of the game, but after a blocked extra point, Jackson would stay up into the half 21-20.
The pace of this game would continue right out of the half as in just three plays, Seimetz found the end zone for his second touchdown of the game on a 31-yard run. Jackson defense continued to struggle to find an answer for Baker as run a 27-yard run into the end zone for his third of the game making the score all tied up again.
Jackson ended up catching a big break as Miami Trace forced a three-and-out. After a slow drive, the Panthers ended up looking at fourth-and-4, where Wolford dropped back and found senior Eli Ray for a 7-yard touchdown to end the third quarter 34-27, Jackson.
Jackson changed the game of pace in the final as they got the ball with a little over 11 minutes to go and chewed up a lot of clock with its running game between Seimetz and Wolford. Wolford would end up finding the end zone for the second time on a 4-yard rushing touchdown. They left 2:28 left on the clock and with that, it just wouldn’t be enough time for Miami Trace to pull of the comeback.
Jackson relied on its running game tonight as they had three different players score a rushing touchdown, including most notably Ryan Seimetz. He ended the game with 122 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns with 22 receiving yards on top of it. Miami Trace had a big spark from Julian Baker as he had 188 rushing yards and found the end zone on three different occasions, but it wasn’t enough to put the panthers on top.
Looking ahead at the final week of the season, Jackson will host the Chillicothe Cavaliers (6-3, 3-1 in FAC) to try and keep the FAC title to themselves for the 5th straight year. For Miami Trace, they will play Washington (5-4, 2-2 in FAC) to try and get back on track for the playoffs.