Wayne scores 15 unanswered points to top Middletown in playoff opener

“I just want to give God the glory,” Wayne coach Roosevelt Mukes said after being doused with Gatorade. “You know what I mean? And then our players and our coaches, they did an outstanding job making some adjustments we needed to.”

Wayne scored first when Aden Vaughn stepped in front of a Jeremiah Landers pass near midfield and returned it for a touchdown in the first quarter, but

Landers responded by engineering a 92-yard touchdown drive that featured a 37-yard pass to Chandler Shields and ended with Landers’ 1-yard touchdown run.

After Dylan Combs made a 30-yard field goal, the Middies took the lead on another Landers touchdown run. He set up the 2-yard scamper with a 14-yard pass to Shields.

The Middies then got the ball right back when Wayne fumbled the ensuing kickoff. Middletown recovered at the Wayne 33 with 3:14 on the clock and took advantage with a 6-yard touchdown pass from Landers to Shields.

That came one play after a personal foul for unnecessary roughness let the Middies convert a third-and-3 on which Landers had been stopped for no gain with 16.9 seconds on the clock.

In the third quarter, the Warriors made it a one-score game when Lewis found Jamier Averette-Brown over the middle for a 10-yard touchdown with 3:02 left in the third quarter. That was set up by an interception, and Carson Limberg’s PAT kick made it 20-18.

Credit: Bill Lackey

Credit: Bill Lackey

Wayne got the ball back still down by two with 3:25 left in the fourth quarter.

Lewis scrambled to the Middletown 40 on the first play, but that was wiped out by a crack-back block personal foul on the Warriors. That pushed them back to their own 35, but they were able to recover from first-and-25 thanks to a 6-yard Thompson run and two scrambles by Lewis.

Four plays later, the quarterback kept the season alive by finding Ka’maurri Smith for 14 yards on a fourth-and-4, and Thompson found the end zone two plays after that.

The Warriors extended the lead to six when Lewis hit Averette-Brown with in the end zone for a two-point conversion.

Lewis, who was under heavy pressure all night, said he got the look he expected and was able to find Smith open on the fourth down.

“It was just whatever it takes, for real,” said the senior. “I knew they were going to give me everything they had. They sent a lot (of blitzes). They sent a lot, for sure, but we were able to start picking that up after a while, adjusted to it, and it led us to where we was at. We ended up getting points on the board.”

Lewis threw for 76 yards and ran for 55 more while Thompson finished with 66 yards on 18 carries.

Landers threw for 115 yards and ran for 90 for the Middies.

The No. 8 seed Warriors advanced take on No. 1 Fairmont next Friday night at Roush Stadium.

The Firebirds, who shared the regular season GWOC title with Centerville and topped Wayne 43-22 in Week 5, beat Central Crossing 42-7 on Friday night, but Mukes wasn’t ready to look ahead to next week yet.

“Our kids never quit,” he said. “That’s what we’ve been preaching. That’s what we’ve been talking about, just staying together through the adversity, and we dealt with a lot of that this year. But the way they persevered, the way they stuck together and just believed in each other – like I said, praise to God and then praise to the players and the coaches. It had nothing to do with me.”

Credit: Bill Lackey

Credit: Bill Lackey

Middletown (5-6) earned the No. 9 seed in Kali Jones’ first season as head coach, and he told his group they had nothing to be ashamed of when it was over.

“I told people that we were ahead of schedule,” Jones said. “We’ve been getting better, working through some psychological things and just some things that the program has been through over the last 13 years. It doesn’t get erased within eight or nine months, nine or 10 months. It doesn’t get erased that fast. You got to fight through it.

“I’m proud of that senior group. They fought. They fought their butts off. This is a talented Wayne football roster. I mean, they got Big Ten commits. Alabama offers, Ohio State offers. I mean, there’s a lot of talent on their football team. The Middies, the Middletown community should be proud of these young men. They fought their butts off. And we have re-established the program to where we’re going to be competitive, right? And then we need to keep working hard so we can be elite, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Credit: Bill Lackey

Credit: Bill Lackey