St. Henry Rallies for 35-21 Win Over Minster

By Bruce Monnin

ST. HENRY — Both the Minster Wildcats and the St. Henry Redskins controlled part of their MAC contest Friday night. Fortunately for St. Henry, their period of dominance lasted much longer, and they emerged victorious, 35-21.

The first 5:25 of the game belonged to Minster, as the Wildcats jumped out to a 14-0 lead and gained 113 yards compared to -1 yards for St. Henry. From that point on, however, the Redskins outscored Minster 35-7, outgained them by 131 yards, ran almost twice as many plays, and recovered three Wildcats fumbles without committing any turnovers of their own.

Minster received the opening kickoff and marched 67 yards in eight plays for their initial score. A Korey Schultz 13-yard touchdown run capped the drive to give the Wildcats an early 7-0 lead.

After forcing a St. Henry punt, Minster started their second series at the Redskin 46-yard line. This time it took just one play as Schultz sliced through the St. Henry defense for the score, making the Wildcat lead 14-0.

After the fast Minster start, momentum immediately swung all the way over to the Redskins.

“You have to give credit to our kids for not folding,” complimented St. Henry coach Jeff Starkey. “We just stuck to the game plan.”

“We were playing a good football team, and we were hot at the beginning,” added Minster coach Nate Moore. “Maybe we lost our rhythm or maybe St. Henry found theirs.”

On the Redskin’s next two possessions they would ride both the arm and the legs of quarterback Kyle Stahl. He would run the ball 11 times for 39 yards and complete seven out of eight pass attempts for 92 more yards. A nine-yard run by Matt Osterholt cut the Minster lead to 14-7 and a nine yard reception by Jordan Bender tied the game at 14-14. Stahl would end up rushing 28 times in the game for 102 yards as well as passing for another 193.

St. Henry appeared to dominate the center of the line of scrimmage for much of those drives. “We were hoping to be able to accomplish that,” confirmed Starkey. “Minster has such good skilled kids that we decided the best defense would be a good offense.”

The Redskins had scored one more time to take a 20-14 halftime lead. After their defense stopped Minster for no yardage in three plays, St. Henry took over possession on their own 40-yard line. Three quick Stahl passes led to the score; a four-yard toss to Adam Reichert, a 30-yard completion to Jesse Evers and the six-yard score to Tyler Schweiterman.

There was no scoring in the third quarter as St. Henry hurt themselves with several penalties, while the Minster offense sputtered, and they lost the first of their three second half fumbles. Late in the quarter, the Redskins started what would be a 13 play, 71-yard scoring drive. Stahl and Reichert took turns pounding into the Minster line with a few passes helping to keep the possession alive. A Stahl three-yard touchdown run gave St. Henry a 28-14 fourth quarter lead.

At this point, the Minster offense suddenly came back to life. It only took four plays for Adam Niemeyer to connect with Devon Poeppelman for a 27-yard touchdown pass to bring the Wildcats back within seven points.

The momentum of the game appeared to have changed again when the Minster defense stopped St. Henry near midfield. However, on the ensuing punt, the ball bounced off a member of the Wildcat coverage team and the Redskins recovered. St. Henry did not let the opportunity go to waste, with Stahl finding Bender three plays later for the final score of the 35-21 game.

St. Henry’s record improves to 3-1 and they host the 1-3 New Bremen Cardinals next week. With the loss, Minster falls to 3-1, and they will receive a visit from the 4-0 Coldwater Cavaliers.

Score by quarter 1 2 3 4 Total

St. Henry 7 13 0 15 35

Minster 14 0 0 7 21