Minster, Fort Loramie golf compete at States
The Minster Wildcat and Fort Loramie Redskin boys golf teams wrapped up their seasons at Northstar Golf Course over a two day period on 10/16 and 10/17.
The Wildcats placed tenth while the Redskins finished seventh with Delphos St. Johns also representing area golf well at states.
Minster (724) and Fort Loramie (692) finished behind Canton Central Catholic (615), Berlin Hilan (626), Gates Mills Gilmour Academy (640), Pettisville (669), Mogadore (682), Newark Catholic (687),
Lima Central Catholic (699) and Cincinatti Seven Hills (715).
The Wildcats, who made their third straight trip to states this year, were led by Joseph Magoto (166), Brady Hoelscher (184), Nathan Beair (190) and Eric Schmidt (195). Leading the Redskins were Adam Ballas (154), Caeleb Meyer (176), Devin Ratermann (191) and Carson Barhorst (197). Ballas, who finished 10th overall, was name to the Second Team All-Ohio after the tournament. needed hope. They finally got some success and you could feel it start to turn, once we got in the end zone, it turned.”
After a Falk touchback gave the Mustangs the ball back, the Wildcat defense capitalized again. A fumble on a Mustang handoff led to the recovery by Wildcat senior Adam Ketner on the Mustang 27-yard line with 7:43 remaining.
A short pass and run followed by an incomplete pass brought up fourth and six from the Mustang 23- yard line.
After a timeout at the 6:04 mark to discuss what to do, the Wildcats came out and lined up to go for it and it paid off. Nixon found a wide-open receiver in senior full back Phil Trzaska and he ran it in for the touchdown to make it 14-6 with 5:58 left.
“It was a big sigh of relief,” said Trzaska on crossing the goal line. “I played almost the whole game and I was out there and was like, ‘oh my gosh,’ then I scored and was like, ‘thank you!’ I felt like we had it after that.”
“That’s Phil’s favorite play in the entire playbook and that was the first time we ran it all year,” said Nixon. “The entire week he was begging coach Stokes to run the play. We decided to go for it (on fourth down) and he turned to Phil and said, ‘Phil Trzaska touchdown right here.’ And I just did the play fake, turned and saw no one within 15 yards of Phil and said, ‘oh my gosh here we go.’ Threw a nice easy pass to him and he took care of the rest.”
Another Falk touchback put the Mustangs at their own 20-yard line. After a fourth down conversion on a shovel pass, the Mustangs faced a fourth and five from their own 43-yard line after bobbling a toss on second down that set them behind the sticks.
Bergman was there yet again, breaking up a pass that came to the far side of the field to give the Wildcats the ball with 3:55 to go.
Wellman led the team with seven tackles, Bryce Barhorst added another four and Bergman finished with 3.5 tackles, a fumble recovery and two pass break ups.
“It was joy, happiness,” said Trzaska on his feelings when he saw Bergman bat it down. “Love for my team, coaches. We’ve put in so much work. It’s tough to describe, I’ve never felt anything quite like it. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to a team, it being my senior year. I just felt love for all the guys on the field. We worked our assess off the whole game. It paid off.”
Three Nixon runs resulted in the use of the last Mustang timeout and the Wildcats kneeled out the time to win the game, 14-6.
“The entire togetherness in that moment,” said Nixon on lining up in the victory formation. “Everyone feeling the same ecstatic emotion, it was just amazing.”
The Wildcats travel to #3 Frankfort Adena on 10/24, who beat Parkway 37-0 on Oct. 17.
“Perfect story for the 12 seniors to write tonight and keep moving on,” said Stokes. “Been a heck of a week for the seniors.”