Braydon Isaacs broke off a 72-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run that helped lift Muncy and the Wildcats to a 22-13 victory over Fenwick in a season-opener at Franklin’s Atrium Stadium.
“I just knew that was the dagger,” Isaacs said. “You could already tell that they were going down left and right. They were getting hurt. We just needed one more dagger to seal this game away. I thought that was it.”
Muncy took over at Franklin during the offseason and secured his first career coaching win. The Wildcats, at the same time, snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Falcons.
“As a team, we made a lot of mistakes early in the game,” said Muncy, a former NFL player for the Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans. “I’m really proud of how our kids bounced back and were resilient and played four quarters. That’s what it took to get the job done.
“It’s so difficult. I’ve been on a lot of teams that have turned things around in one year. To get over that hump and create that culture where you fight until the end, that is so great to see and so huge when, again, things didn’t go perfectly for us. We had to really do it the hard way, and that’s our motto.”
Fenwick’s Fred Cranford made his second debut as head coach of the Falcons. He was hired after former Fenwick coach Mark Mueller took the Monroe head coach job during the offseason. Cranford coached the Falcons from 2006-2012.
“We’ve got the fight in us,” Cranford said. “We’re young, and we’ve got to figure out that when the lights turn on, we have to turn up.
“Clearly, we need to figure out what to do to take care of ourselves and stay on the field,” added Cranford, whose Falcons sustained several injuries Friday. “I told them that it’s going to sting a little more tomorrow. There’s going to be a lot of things from an execution standpoint or an effort standpoint we’ve got to fine tune and button up. That’s where you get back in the lab and correct those things.”
Franklin and Fenwick took a 0-0 score into the second quarter before Malachi Gipson scored on a 9-yard run to give the Wildcats a 7-0 lead with 6:12 on the clock.
Fenwick junior tight end Steven Rude caught a 4-yard TD pass to tie it at 7-7 with under a minute left in the first half.
“I give Fenwick all the credit. Those kids came out ready to play,” Muncy said. “Coach Cranford had those guys ready to play. Great staff over there. They’re well-coached. They played hard.”
Isaacs scored on a 1-yard plunge and a Jordan Milligan two-point conversion run gave Franklin a 15-7 lead with 5:58 left in the third.
Fenwick answered with a touchdown pass, but the conversion attempt failed to keep it 15-13 in favor of Franklin with 5:50 remaining.
A minute later, Isaacs scampered 72 yards to put it away.
“He’s a ballplayer,” Muncy said of Isaacs. “It doesn’t matter where you put him. We needed that right there at that moment.”
“The culture has taken a complete 180,” Isaacs chimed in. “Muncy’s changed it. We’re all hyped. We have the whole community here — especially after last year. Everybody came out. They knew we were happy that Coach Muncy came in to help the culture. We’re all pumped and ready to go.”
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