DECATUR — It can be difficult to beat a team twice in a season. It’s probably even harder to find a way to win a pair of those games in a three-week stretch.
Friday night in Decatur was an example of just that, as White Pigeon beat the host Raiders in the opening weekend of the MHSAA football playoffs.
White Pigeon’s road win came in overtime, 22-20. A massive 2-point conversion stop by the Chiefs in the opening overtime caused the Chief bench to erupt in joy and spill out onto the field.
Shawn Strawser’s team exacted some revenge from a 22-14 loss a few weeks ago to the same Raider team.
“It’s hard to beat somebody twice. People kept asking me who we wanted to face in the playoffs and all that,” Strawser said. “We knew we’d have to go through them anyways, so we figured it was just fine playing them the first game. Two good football teams tonight, that was a hell of a football game. But I also hate the feeling those guys are going through over there (Decatur), you gotta feel for them.”
Strawser admitted his team struggled in a variety of ways during their two-game losing streak near the end of the season. The Chiefs started the campaign at 6-0, but lost to Bronson (32-6) and Decatur in back-to-back weeks before rebounding to beat Stockbridge last week.
“We really didn’t have a good few weeks there. Mentally we were just making too many mistakes and we lost our swagger a little bit,” Strawser said. “It wasn’t up to par for us and we had to work on limiting our mistakes.”
At times, White Pigeon ran the ball effectively. Other times, it was a struggle. But given the solid state of Decatur’s football program, it was expected to be another rock fight between the teams.
The Chiefs scored on their first drive with Maddix Jancasz finding the end zone. He broke free from would-be tacklers and sprinted his way into paydirt to put the Chiefs up early. They’d build on that early lead a bit later, as Jancasz scored to put White Pigeon up 14-6, which would be the score as both teams entered the locker rooms for halftime.
As the temperatures fell, the field got a bit slick and both teams continued to drive the time off the clock, then things got a bit tight. White Pigeon forced an interception deep in its own territory with Brody Block picking off a pass in the red zone.
The Chiefs were leading the game at that point, 14-12. But the lead didn’t last long, as on the ensuing possession, White Pigeon suffered a safety to tie the game at 14. But the Chief defense stood up one more time on a Decatur drive late in the fourth.
And protecting its own end zone came up a few more times for the Chiefs in the game. Late in the fourth, the Raiders were driving, but a critical fourth-down stop by Jancasz and Taylor Stewart put a shot in the arm for the Chiefs. They didn’t move the ball anywhere on that final drive, but neither team had any timeouts left and the clock ran to triple zeros.
In the overtime session, White Pigeon lost the coin toss and went on offense first. The drive ended as Stewart plowed into the end zone, on the next snap he was guided into the end zone again by his offensive line as the Chiefs took a 22-14 edge.
In Decatur’s turn with the ball, the Raiders scored pretty quick. But on that 2-point conversion attempt to tie the game, White Pigeon got a great push up front that made the difference.
“We brought the house, if they were gonna get in, they were gonna get in,” Strawser said. “I thought we did a nice job containing that edge, we got the stop we needed.”
With the win, White Pigeon advances to play. at Hudson next week. The Tigers are now 10-0 on the season and can score quite a bit. White Pigeon will hit the road for that contest, which will be played on Friday night.
In Friday’s win, which was not of the pretty variety, White Pigeon once again did not attempt a pass. The Chiefs finished with 236 yards on 47 plays.
Stewart led the way with 100 yards on 23 carries, he scored once. Jancasz put up 77 yards on 13 carries, he scored twice. Hunter Pant provided a spark with 57 yards on nine carries.
Stewart had 12 tackles in the game, Pant added six. Jancasz made four tackles with an interception, Trayton Heiman had four tackles for loss and two sacks while Block intercepted a pass.
Contact Sports Editor Brandon Watson at bwatson@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @BwatsonSJ.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: White Pigeon ‘brought the house’ to stuff Decatur in playoff OT win
Reporting by Brandon Watson, Sturgis Journal / Sturgis Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
