Minster Rains on Parkway’s Homecoming, 43-16

By Bruce Monnin

ROCKFORD — It was Homecoming for the Parkway Panthers, but the Minster Wildcats dampened the festivities early by scoring 36 first half points en route to a 43-16 victory. While each offense posted over 400 yards in total offense, the weather took its toll, as a total of 12 turnovers were committed by the two squads. The men in stripes contributed also, with 21 penalty flags being tossed for almost 200 more yards.

The turnovers hit early, as Parkway fumbled away the ball on their first possession. Minster returned the favor, as Cain Pontsler ended the Wildcat scoring opportunity with an interception on the Panther five-yard line.

On Minster’s next possession, Adam Niemeyer connected with Ethan Wolf who covered the 40 yards needed for the first Wildcat score. A fumbled snap on the extra point kick led to a successful two-point conversion pass, and Minster had an early 8-0 lead.

That looked to be the score at the end of the first quarter when Dakota Hucke intercepted another Wildcat pass with just 44 seconds remaining. Instead, Minster forced and recovered a fumble on the next Parkway play, then Niemeyer scrambled for a 42-yard touchdown run with 23 seconds remaining in the period.

There was still more action to come in the quarter. On the next Panther play, a deflected pass was intercepted by Minster’s Tate Carlon, who lived the lineman’s dream as he returned the pick 10 yards for the third Wildcat touchdown, giving Minster a 20-0 lead.

The rest of the Wildcat scoring on the night came from the feet of running back Korey Schultz. He ran the ball nine times on the evening for 188 yards, including touchdown runs of 2 and 85 yards in the second quarter, and another of 35 yards just after halftime, giving Minster a 43-0 lead.

With just one minute gone in the third quarter, Minster had compiled 381 yards on offense to Parkway’s 146 yards. The rest of the game would belong to the Panthers, as they outgained the Wildcats 279-26 the rest of the way.

Parkway would turn almost exclusive to the running of Austin Dennison and Brandon Moorman. Dennison would run 26 times for 217 yards, while Moorman would contribute another 22 carriers for 162 yards. Each would also score on a long fourth quarter run, with Moorman going in from 33 yards out and Dennison reaching paydirt from 24 yards away, making the final score 43-16.

Minster ran their normal spread offense despite the rainy night. “We got here early and found the field was in really good shape, so we pretty much ran our normal offense,” confirmed Minster coach Nate Moore.

“I thought our kids did a nice job,” continued Moore. “This was a 0-6 team, so it was not the easiest game to get up for and the weather was terrible. It is easy to trip yourself up in this situation. Obviously, we came out and played well.”

5-2 Minster (3-2 in the MAC) heads home to face 3-4 Fort Recovery next Friday for their Homecoming game. 0-7 Parkway (0-5 in the MAC) travels to face 4-3 St. Henry.

Score by quarter 1 2 3 4 Total

Minster 20 16 7 0 43

Parkway 0 0 0 16 16