Max Molessa leads Williamstown past Wirt County, 56-21
Trending
ELIZABETH -- Max Molessa tossed three touchdown passes and found the end zone with his feet a trio of times here Friday night at Wilson-Eismon Field to help lead defending Class A state champion Williamstown past Wirt County, 56-21, in what was an early season battle of Little Kanawha Conference programs.
The Tigers, who will have a short week with a game Thursday at St. Marys which was on a bye, led 7-0 and 13-6 early before falling behind 36-13 at intermission.
Although the orange and black only trailed 36-21 entering the fourth, the Yellowjackets of head coach Chris Beck pulled away and ended the affair when freshman Gavin Buck sacked Tyler Smith on the final play.
"Credit coach Hickman's staff. I thought they made a lot of plays tonight and did well," said Beck. "Today was a great game in terms of our starters had to play the whole time. It gave us a lot of things on film to work on.
"I'm thankful for that. We've got to get better, but a win is a win and you never want to sulk over a win. We won and that's a good team we beat. Credit them for all that got accomplished, but we got a lot of work to do."
WHS, which plays Friday at Ritchie County, went three-and-out to open the game and the Tigers wasted little time getting a big play from Chase Lowe, who went around the right end and ended up cutting all the way across the field for a 61-yard gain. However, the Tigers' drive stalled just outside the red zone.
On the 'Jackets' ensuing play from scrimmage, Porter Goodwin stripped Cooper Martin after a pass reception and Chase Lowe picked it up and had a 26-yard scoop-and-score. Evan McClung's extra point made it 7-0.
It didn't take long for WHS to answer as Martin redeemed himself on a fourth-and-5 play from the 9 with a touchdown grab on a slant pass from Molessa, but the conversion pass failed.
Wirt County used a pass interference call on third down along with a personal foul face mask to get its next drive going. Channing Lowe then broke off a 47-yard jaunt out of the Wildcat, which led to his own 4-yard plunge for a 13-6 lead at 3:03 of the first.
Facing a fourth-and-4 at their own 49, coach Beck elected to go for it and Molessa shred a pair of tackles and raced 51 yards to paydirt. Molessa's conversion run put the 'Jackets ahead for good, 14-13, at 1:34 of the first.
Gavin Lemley came through with a timely sack to force a punt from the Tigers and it only took WHS three plays to score. Molessa hit Louis Goodnow for 18 yards and Lynken Joy, who rushed for 148 stripes on 17 totes, bolted for a 33-yard gain. That led to a trick play as Molessa threw a lateral to Joy, who lofted a pass to a wide open Goodnow for a touchdown. Molessa then hit Landon Dodrill for the two-point conversion toss to make it a two possession game.
Wirt County starting center Lucas Pahl left via injury early in the second and the Tigers had snap issues the remainder of the night.
WHS forced a Tiger punt and then attempted a fake punt of its own, but Martin wasn't able to haul in Goodnow's aerial.
Nonetheless, the Tigers went three-and-out with the ball at the Yellowjacket 29. WHS proceeded to score twice more before intermission as Molessa hooked up with Goodnow on scoring strikes of 20 and 9 yards, respectively, for a 36-13 halftime advantage.
The Tigers inserted lineman Chase Parsons into the backfield to open the second half and he had big runs of 24 and 18 yards. After reaching the red zone, Channing Lowe darted around the left end for a 19-yard TD. After Goodwin snared the two-point pass from Smith, the Tigers were within two possessions at 36-21 with 8:34 on the clock.
A Chase Lowe sack of Molessa forced a fourth down on the ensuing WHS drive and the 'Jackets turned the ball over on downs at the Tiger 26 after an incomplete pass on fourth. However, once again the 'Jacket defense rose to the occasion and forced a three-and-out.
Prior to Molessa's 4-yard TD run just six ticks into the fourth, which made it 42-21, Tiger Isaiah Sampson had to leave the game on a stretcher following a collision.
After Goodnow recovered a fumble, Molessa added an 11-yard TD burst and it was 49-21 with 5:24 to go following Jonah Bosgraf's PAT.
Smith was then intercepted by Martin on the next play from scrimmage. Joy went 46 yards on first down and following a 7-yard gain by Cooper Billingsley, Rex Anderson bulled in from the 1 to set the final score following another Bosgraf boot.
"We were down to our freshman third string center by the third quarter there," said coach Hickman. "When you only have 28 kids on your team you can't afford certain injuries in certain spots and we had two of them unfortunately. (Sampson) it was probably just precautionary. He had some pain in his neck and lower back, but I think he'll be OK.
"It was a two score game going into the fourth quarter. We were playing and we were fighting. We were dropping like flies out there, too. We're not very deep with 28 bodies so we were just trying to throw everything we had at them. We came up short, but I am proud of the fight of our kids and we have to learn from this and continue to get better."
Molessa finished with game-highs of 21 rushes for 195 yards and hit 10 of 12 passes for 81 yards as WHS, which had a fumble recovery from Christian Hoosier, held a 474-249 advantage in total yards. Goodnow had eight grabs for 82 stripes along with booting a 52-yard punt and averaging 42.7 yards on his three attempts.
The Tigers were led on the ground by Channing Lowe (17-134), Chase Lowe (13-81) and Parsons (5-52).
"We got to clean up penalties (8-90)," added coach Beck, who was glad to see Buck continue his solid play. "Gavin is actually third on our team in tackles coming into this game because he's played the second half the last two games.
"He's a freshman that makes plays when he's in there. We got a lot of things to clean up, but we got to get better. That's the thing. Take the win and there's some good things tonight for sure, and a lot of things to work on."
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com