PLAINFIELD
Greenwood quarterback Brock Riddle ran 77 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the second half to give the Woodmen a short-lived boost.
Although the two-point conversion failed, it closed the deficit to 22-20. Unfortunately for the Woodmen, it was all Plainfield after that. The Class 5A No. 4 Quakers scored 24 unanswered points Friday night for a 46-20 victory over the visiting Woodmen. Quakers running back Luke Starnes led the way with 175 yards on 23 carries, including four touchdown runs.
“We had a big play with that QB run but they went down and answered,” Greenwood coach Justin Boser said. “They made some adjustments after that run that we just struggled with. We went for it deep in our end instead of punting to put our defense in a tough spot.Sometimes being too aggressive can hurt you. I thought our defense played so much better. We had way better tackling, team defense. Our defense took a step forward. The score might not show it but that’s because we put them in tough spots in the late third and fourth quarter.”
The Quakers (5-0, 3-0 Mid-State) pushed the lead to 25-20 on Leo Heyob’s 30-yard field goal with 9:02 left in the third quarter. A 7-yard scoring pass from Hunter Newell to Brandon Hendry gave the Quakers a 31-20 left. The conversion run was short. Starnes’ 14-yard TD run boosted the lead to 37-20 in the first 3 minutes of the fourth quarter. The conversion failed.
Greenwood was forced to run a bad snap out of the end zone to give the Quakers a safety and a 39-20 lead with 7:32 left.
Plainfield scored again on a 10-yard TD run by Westyn Weyrick and converted the PAT to close the scoring.
Starnes scored three touchdowns in the first half to lead Plainfield to a 22-14 halftime lead.
The Woodmen (3-2, 1-2) scored first on Jackson Haessig’s 59-yard run. Greenwood failed to convert on the conversion run. Plainfield tied it at 6-6 on a 30-yard TD run by Starnes with 4:07 left in the first quarter. As became habit, the two-point conversion failed.
The Quakers took a 14-6 lead on a 45-yard run by Starnes and two-point conversion run by Marcos Rivera with 2:14 left in the first quarter.
In the first two-plus minutes of the second quarter, the Woodmen were able to tie at 14-all on a 31-yard TD pass from Riddle to Amare Middleton and a conversion run by Riddle.
Greenwood missed a chance to take the lead when Andreas Colin missed a 28-yard field goal attempt with six and a half minutes left in the second quarter. The Quakers scored on a 1-yard run by Starnes and two-point conversion run by Elijah Flowers to make it 22-14 with 18.6 seconds left before halftime.
Newell completed 18 of 29 passes for 174 yards for the Quakers.
Riddle rushed for 138 yards on 12 attempts; Haessig finished with 109 yards on nine carries. However, Greenwood’s passing game struggled for the first time this season as Riddle was 7 of 23 for 65 yards and an interception.
“They did a good job on us, mixed up some coverages,” Boser said. “We missed on some throws.We have to clean up on that; we’re going to see some taller defensive backs. We have to create some separations. As a coaching staff, we have to do a better job of doing some designs to get them open. Overall, I’m just proud of the defense and the way they stepped up. We’ll fix what we need to fix on offense and get back to playing a full team game. The first three games the offense picked up and the last two games the offense struggled. Hopefully, we can get back on track on both sides of the ball and get back on track against Perry.”
The Woodmen host Perry Meridian next week.
