By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
PAW PAW — A few weeks ago, amid some injuries to key players on defense, Three Rivers got rinsed by Paw Paw at home 43-0, part of a stretch where the Wildcats lost three consecutive games with a goose-egg under their name.
However, quarterback Mason Awe and a healthy Wildcats’ defense shut down Paw Paw for most of the game and got them out of their comfort zone, with Awe rushing for three touchdowns, including an 80-yarder with less than five minutes left to seal the game and take home a 21-14 upset win over the host Red Wolves.
“In the first half, 10 guys were playing good football. We would have one guy miss an assignment, one guy jump, one guy was just kind of the fly in the ointment. And then we cleaned some things up, and in the second half, our offensive line played really well,” Three Rivers head coach Jeff Awe said. “They pass protected, and because they gave [Mason Awe] time to make plays, he could set his feet, he had escape lanes. So, if they came after him, he ran the ball and hurt them, and if they sat back, he picked them apart.”
Mason Awe’s 80-yard scamper down the left sideline put the Wildcats up 21-14 with four minutes to go in the game, giving the ball back to Paw Paw. The Red Wolves would drive into Three Rivers territory before quarterback Ryan Lasinski uncorked a deep pass that was intercepted by Brayden Carpenter and returned back to the Wildcats’ 43-yard line.
However, Three Rivers, with two minutes to go in the game, was not able to get a first down to seal the game and gave the ball back to the Red Wolves from their own 42 with one minute to play. A big pass to Kaelin Tate set the Red Wolves up in the Three Rivers red zone, but on the next play, Lasinski was intercepted again by Carpenter to officially seal the deal and take home the win.
“Our defense played lights out,” Jeff Awe said. “This was about as healthy as our defense has been in weeks, and you could kind of see that.”
Both defenses stymied each other for much of the first half, with the lone score in the first two quarters coming via a 14-yard touchdown rush up the middle by Carter Buhl late in the first quarter on their first drive of the game to make it 7-0.
Three Rivers would have their chances in the first half to score, as they got into Paw Paw territory on their second drive of the game, however a 42-yard field goal attempt by Jacin Selent missed to end what had been a promising drive that bled into the second quarter. Awe would also throw an interception late in the second quarter to end another drive that started in Red Wolves territory. TR’s defense after the first-drive score would force a punt, an interception and the end of half on Paw Paw’s remaining drives of the first half.
“We weren’t real healthy when we played them in Week 8. We were missing some really key kids, particularly on defense, and we had trouble just holding the line of scrimmage,” Jeff Awe said. “This particular week, we got a lot of those guys back. Up front defensively, we were physical. We came off the football. When we played them the first time, we had trouble doing that. So, that made a huge difference.”
In the third quarter, Awe would start going off. After a 48-yard completion to Carpenter on a deep ball down the right side to get into Paw Paw’s red zone, he would follow it up two plays later with a five-yard touchdown rush up the middle from shotgun to tie the game at 7-7 after the extra point was converted.
Paw Paw would immediately respond, as Eli Sonnenberg took the ensuing kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown to put the Red Wolves right back in front, 14-7. Mason Awe would then strike back on the Wildcats’ next drive, tossing a deep pass down the right side for 57 yards to Carpenter to get the Wildcats in Paw Paw territory, and then after a 13-yard pass to Zander Barth got them to the 10-yard line, Awe would scramble to the right side, find an opening, and race in for the score to tie the game at 14-14 with 1:19 to go in the third quarter.
The Red Wolves would miss a 31-yard field goal attempt on their next drive, and the Wildcats would eventually have to punt, but a shank gave the Red Wolves a short field from the TR 37-yard line. The Wildcat defense, however, would stay strong in their red zone, forcing a turnover on downs, which set up Awe’s 80-yard touchdown rush to end the game, 21-14.
Mason Awe would finish the day 18-of-24 passing for 216 yards, while rushing for 107 yards on 10 attempts and scoring three touchdowns. Carpenter had 10 receptions for 180 yards plus two interceptions on defense. Paw Paw would have 234 total yards of offense, with 178 rush yards on 49 attempts, and 56 yards on 6-of-14 passing.
Jeff Awe said getting Paw Paw into passing situations late in the game was an unusual thing for their opponents.
“You’re talking about a Paw Paw team that had thrown the ball two times in the last three games,” Jeff Awe said. “We forced them to throw it 14 times. That’s not what they want to do.”
With the win, Three Rivers (6-4) moves on to face 6-4 Vicksburg on the road Friday night at 7 p.m. in Vicksburg for the Division 4 district championship. Vicksburg won the other district semifinal 43-30 over Edwardsburg last week.
It will be a rematch of a Sept. 26 matchup in which the Bulldogs won in Three Rivers to take home the Swine Bone trophy, 28-24. After that game, Jeff Awe said he believed he would see Vicksburg again in the playoffs, and after the win over Paw Paw, he said it was “fate” that the rematch would happen.
“It seemed like that’s kind of the way fate was going to deal the cards. But our kids will be excited to go to Vicksburg, and they’ll be ready to play,” Jeff Awe said. “I think they’re going to fight. We just have to clean some things up, because the first game against them, it was the team that made the final mistake that lost the game, and that was us.
“That Bone can be taken away from year to year, but a district title, those numbers are forever. We’re going to put everything we got into winning it.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
