Anna’s quarterback Logan Ziegenbusch scans the field for an open player to pass to. (Press Pros Feature Photos By Julie McMaken Wright)
Anna ignored the doubters and scored 14 unanswered points to stun Coldwater and stoke hopes of another special season for the Rockets, but nothing comes easy in the MAC
By Marcus Hartman for Press Pros
Anna, OH — Oh, the highs and lows of a high school football season.
Anna and Coldwater knew them well after just three weeks.
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The defending state champion Cavaliers won a rollercoaster game at Valley View to open the season, then lost 14-7 at home to Clinton-Massie in Week 2. They bounced back from that to win 28-14 last week, but now coach Chip Otten’s team faces more adversity.
Coldwater is 2-2 while Anna is a high-flying 3-1 after the Rockets scored 14 unanswered points to win 14-7 Friday night at Booster Field.
“They played really well and did what they do, and we didn’t make any plays on offense basically,” said Otten, whose team lost running back Braxton Taylor to a hamstring injury in the second half Friday night. “He was the guy who was getting us some some yards.”
Anna’s Landon Hewitt recovers the ball after he blocked the punt of Coldwater’s punter Bryce Couchot.
That left sophomore quarterback Karsyn Homan to run for his life from a relentless Anna pass rush spearheaded by senior Landon Hewitt.
“Give credit to their defense,” Otten said. “We knew what they were going to do, but we just couldn’t get a block.”
While more observers statewide might take note of Coldwater losing, the story of the night was the resilient Rockets, who brushed off a deflating loss at Minster last week to come from behind to defeat the Cavaliers for only the fourth time since 2006.
Logan Ziegenbusch threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Kale Hoying with 3:48 to go, and the defense forced a four-and-out to secure the victory on an early Senior Night for the Rockets.
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“I thought our players stepped up really well,” Anna coach Nick Marino said. “Especially our seniors played well tonight, made some really big plays when they had to.
“We talked to them about that all week about practicing better, and they embraced it this week more than any other week we’ve had so far. And it paid off. Stepping up in practice always, always comes to the game.”
Anna’s Brody Murray tries to Rocket his way thru two Coldwater defenders.
Hoying’s touchdown catch capped an 11-play, 94-yard drive they are probably going to remember for a long time in these parts, but Marino and his players knew they only had so much time to celebrate such a win. The season is only a month old, and St. Henry is next.
“We got to get better,” Marino said of the coming week. “We’re on to another opponent. We know St. Henry is one of the most senior-loaded teams in the league, and that’s a big challenge that we’re going to be excited for next week, and we’re going to probably have to play even better to compete with those guys.”
Anna’s splendid second half followed a first half that was unexciting even for a typical scoreless game. The biggest play — or at least longest from scrimmage — was the last one as Ziegenbusch scrambled to his right and fired a pass over the middle.
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It whizzed by intended receiver Brody Murray but hit Coldwater’s Cadin Obringer and bounced right back to Murray. He grabbed the ball in stride near the 10 but was run out of bounds at the 5 with no time on the clock. A 22-yard gain, it was the longest of the first half for either team. It also concluded the second Anna drive to end inside the Coldwater 20 without points.
Anna’s Zeb Pleiman hurdles Coldwater’s Nolan Mescher for yardage.
The Rockets got the ball at the Cavaliers 16 with 8:55 left in the first quarter after Hewitt blocked a punt and recovered it there. Ziegenbusch ran to ball to the 11 on second-and-10, but he was stuffed for just a 1-yard gain on the following play, and his pass to Hoying in the left flat fell incomplete on fourth down to end the threat.
The Cavaliers appeared to have something going on their last possession of the second quarter thanks to a 15-yard connection between Homan and Caleb Schroer — Coldwater’s only explosive play of the half — that converted a third-and-10 from their 20. They picked up 14 yards on their next to plays but were unable to cross into Anna territory, stalling at their own 48 after a sack and a short pass.
Hewitt lived in the Coldwater backfield in the first half, registering two sacks and two other tackles for loss along with the blocked punt.
Anna’s Kale Hoying celebrates his touchdown with one of the Assistant coaches on the sidelines with a body bump.
“They changed it up to put me in the blitzes more this week because I’m usually more pass-side linebacker,” Hewitt said. “So they hit the scheme up, gave me more blitzes, and I just did what I could and tried to make plays. And it ended up working out for me.”
If points were awarded for game control and field position, the Rockets would have been in good shape heading into the break. That is not how it works, though, so the game was as even after 24 minutes as it was when the night began.
Coldwater got the kickoff to start the second half and its best field position of the night thanks to a 25-yard return by Taylor.
The Cavs looked like they might waste it, but Homan found Obringer in the seam for 24 yards on third-and-11 to get the drive moving. Five plays later, Taylor took a handoff over right tackle, bounced outside and managed to beat the pursuit to the corner for a 12-yard touchdown that gave Coldwater a 7-0 lead.
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Anna struck right back, putting together a balanced 13-play, 80-yard march that featured running and passing.
This time they finished the job with Ziegenbusch finding Zeb Pleiman, who ran and out route while the Coldwater defender was cheating in. That resulted in an 8-yard touchdown pass, and the PAT kick tied the score at 7 with under a minute to go in the third quarter.
Coldwater’s Braxton Taylor scores six for the Cavaliers.
It was a gut-check drive if there ever was one for the Rockets, who knew few outside their locker room figured they could hang with the defending state champions.
“We heard it all week, ‘Oh you guys are going to get killed. Coldwater is going to beat you,’” Pleiman said. “But we have to have that next play mentality. So, I mean, big play like that happens for them to score a touchdown, we’ve got to come back and execute our plays.
“This is a surreal feeling. I mean, at least since I’ve been here, we haven’t beat Coldwater once, and we prepared all week mentally, physically. I mean, this was probably the hardest week of practice we’ve had so far. And our coaches push us, and they make us better, really, throughout the week.”
As for Coldwater, Otten was asked if it is easier to recover from a game like this when a program has such a winning tradition or more difficult when it’s not used to losing twice early in the season.
“That’s good question,” he said. “Each team’s a little bit different. We’ll find out. We’ll find out what this group, whether they can do that, especially with the scene with these couple injuries. Now we are going to get one linebacker back, probably both linebackers back, that were out. So yeah, we’ll see.”
Anna’s Julian Stearn takes down Cavalier’s quarterback Karsyn Homan for a sack in the second half of the game.
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