WARNER – A pair of Howard onside kicks lit the fuse for a 28-point second-quarter explosion and the Warner Monarchs were never able to fully recover Thursday night.
The defending state champion Tigers were blanked in three quarters of the contest, but used the second period to fuel a 28-21 Class 9A football quarterfinal playoff victory over Warner, ending the Monarchs season for the second straight year.
The setback was just the third total in four years of competition for the Warner seniors.
“Unfortunately, two of them were to Howard in the playoffs,” said Warner’s Chays Mansfield. “They’re a good team and they got a shot to win this year, again.”
Mansfield hit Alec Mikkelsen for a first-quarter touchdown which Howard answered with a TD from Kolt Becker with 9:16 left before the half. That’s when the game changed almost instantly.
The Tigers recovered an onside kick and scored just three players later and soon the visitors owned a 16-7 lead. Howard then recovered another onside kick and this time went on a prolonged scoring drive, finding the end zone with 2:10 left in the half for a 22-7 margin.
“We worked on it all week,” said Warner coach Derek Hoellein of the onside kicks. “It’s just tough when the lights are on. Obviously, the onside kicks was a big thing, and then just a couple of calls that didn’t go our way. … It is what it is. We had our chances the second half, the first couple drives.”
While onside kicks are traditionally low-percentage plays, they are part of Howard’s weekly game plan.
“We practice it all the time,” said Howard coach Pat Ruml. “It’s one of those things that we do. … We use them a lot. We don’t just do it once in a while.”
Meanwhile, because the Tigers kept getting the ball back, Warner went a huge chunk of the half without possessing the ball. After scoring with 5:07 left in the opening quarter, the Monarchs did not touch the ball until 2:04 left in the half. Warner then had the ball for only a total of 13 seconds because of three incomplete passes.
“We knew it was going to be a low-possession game the way it was,” Hoellein said. “Obviously, we get the ball twice early in the game. We score once, we punt once, and then we didn’t see the ball for another eight minutes or whatever. That was a huge momentum swing.”
To compound matters, Howard tacked on one more touchdown in the first half when Becker broke free down the sideline for a 71-yard score in the final minute to give the Tigers a commanding 28-7 advantage.
“We dug ourselves too big of a hole. The long run right before half was a back breaker,” Hoellein said. “We had it stuffed, we just missed a tackle and they made us pay for it.”
Becker said the play was supposed to go the other direction, but he saw an opening and took off.
“The play was supposed to go right,” Becker said, “and when I see an opening, I’m juking that way and I’m taking off as fast as I can.”
Still, those on both sides of the action knew the game was far from over at halftime.
“I knew when we were ahead … I knew they were going to come flying back,” Ruml said.
Hoellein knew his guys were not going to quit.
“I told the guys at halftime, we’re never going to lay over, we’re never going to lay over. I don’t care what the score is, we’ll never lay over,” Hoellein said. “They showed some fight the second half. We gave ourselves a chance, but just came up a little short.”
The Monarchs pitched a shutout the remainder of the contest, and the momentum started to turn late in the third quarter. Mansfield capped a nine-play drive on a quarterback sneak with 1:08 left in the third to close the gap.
Trailing 28-13 midway through the fourth, Warner put together a 10-play drive which finished in a 17-yard TD pass from Mansfield to Jesiah Baum. When the duo hooked up for a two-point PAT it left the margin at 28-21 with 2:52 remaining.
Warner needed a defensive stop and got it with 1:15 left. The Tigers then decided to run the ball instead of punting to Baum, who returned multiple kicks for touchdowns during his career.
“We couldn’t punt it to him,” Ruml said, “because he wrecks games that way. … You give that kid any chance and he’s gone.”
However, unlike a game earlier this season in which Warner rallied from a 22-point halftime deficit against Ipswich, the comeback would fall short against Howard as the Monarchs failed to pick up a first down on their final possession.
“We’ve done it before,” Mansfield said of a dramatic comeback, “and we almost did it again.”
Instead, it was another hard-fought loss to Howard in the postseason in another physical football game.
“Like coaches said before the game,” Mansfield said, “it’s going to be 100 plays of line up in front of a brick wall and run into it head first.”
Becker finished with a monster night, scoring a pair of touchdowns, kicking both onside kicks, blocking a Warner PAT, and knocking away numerous passes to Baum to prevent big plays.
“We knew coming in he was probably their best player. We were going to have to wrap, because he’s fast,” Becker said. “We started keying on him later in the second half, because he really wasn’t doing that much in the first half, but then he started cooking up, so I had to shade a little bit to his side.”
With rosters full of young players, there’s a real chance that Howard and Warner could be competing in the postseason for years to come.
“The big thing about this Warner-Howard game is there’s a lot of young guys out here, that nobody understands,” Ruml said. “They have a ton of sophomores, I’ve got a ton of sophomores. I’ve only got a few seniors, too. So right now on this field there was a lot of talent, but a lot of young guys.”
Warner had just three seniors on its roster this year.
“We’ve got a lot of young kids. Warner football’s not going anywhere,” Hoellein said. “We’re going to reload and be ready to go next year.”
Howard will face Alcester-Hudson in next week’s semifinals, a team the Tigers lost to at the start the season.
Warner capped its year with a 9-1 record and another Lake Region Conference championship.
“This is a team game, 9-man, but it’s more than that,” Mansfield said. “We had 23 this year, and we’ve had quite a few injuries, but it’s taken all 23 of us, even the injured guys doing their part, to win football games and make a run in the playoffs.”
Howard (8-2) 0 28 0 0 – 28
Warner (9-1) 7 0 6 8 – 21
W – Alec Mikkelsen 19 pass from Chays Mansfield (Mikkelsen kick).
H – Kolt Becker 7 run (Becker run).
H – Owen Feldhaus 1 run (Garrett Felhaus pass from Drew Maier).
H – O. Feldhaus 12 pass from Maier.
H – Becker 71 run.
W – Mansfield 1 run.
W – Jesiah Baum 16 pass from Mansfield (Baum pass from Mansfield).
OFFENSE: Howard, rushing (Becker 33-187), passing (Maier 4-7 for 34), first downs 10; Warner, rushing (Baum 11-52, Mansfield 13-40), passing (Mansfield 8-21-110), receiving (Baum 4-56), first downs 10.
DEFENSE: Howard, team effort; Warner, Noah Bakeberg 13 tackles, Mansfield 10 tackles, Baum 9 tackles.
