Eddie Mowen Jr. | The Register-Herald
ARCANUM — For the past five weeks, Preble Shawnee’s football team has been on cruise control rolling to several victories with a running clock.
If the Arrows needed a wake-up call, they got one in the form of a feisty Arcanum team – albeit for just a half.
Over the past five weeks the Arrows have been in a running clock situation to begin the second half, but Arcanum forced Shawnee to lock in for most of the first half and parts of the third quarter.
“Not happy with how we started,” Shawnee coach Dave Maddox said. “We got punched in the mouth. Arcanum did a great job. Their kids played hard to hole whole game. They had a great game plan.”
After a scoreless for 21-plus minutes, Shawnee shook off the cobwebs and rolled to its eighth straight win, 34-0, on Thursday, Oct. 10.
“Was proud how our guys battled through the adversity in the first half, came out in second half and had cobwebs wiped away and played much better,” Maddox said. “You can say it a million times, stay humble, keep fighting, keep working, and it just becomes kind of monotonous at some point. And I think we needed to be punched in the mouth a little bit, and I think they did, and it kind of woke us up.”
Shawnee broke the scoreless affair with a 68-yard touchdown run with 2:12 left in the first half.
The Arrows then blocked an Arcanum punt and returned the ball to the Trojan 15 moments later. Brody Morton followed with a 14-yard touchdown run and the Arrows led 14-0 with 1:34 remaining in the first half.
Shawnee took its opening drive of the second half 52 yards for another touchdown, this time a Reece Smith 3-yard run for a 20-0 lead with 9:41 left in the third.
On its next possession, the Arrows got a 31-yard TD pass from Morton to Caleb Blankenship to make it 27-0 with 7:13 left in the third.
After forcing a punt, the Arrows found the end zone again on a 2-yard Nolan Earles TD run with 3:01 left to begin another running clock situation with Shawnee taking a 34-0 lead.
What once was a tied game turned into a route in a matter of 11 minutes, mainly due to the Arrows swarming defense and special teams. Shawnee held the Trojans to just 109 yards of offense and blocked two punts.
“The defense is playing so well because it’s such a complete unit. This is one of the first times that I can ever remember at Shawnee having both sides of the football all of our starters are juniors and seniors,” Maddox said. “So, they’ve got a lot of experience up front. You know, defense starts up front, and the four guys lining up front are doing an absolutely wonderful job, and our linebackers are able to flow and get to the ball, and our secondary is solid.”
Shawnee, now 8-0 overall and 7-0 in the Western Ohio Athletic Conference, will travel to Ansonia (7-0, 7-0) on Saturday, Oct. 19 with the WOAC title on the line.
Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.
