Lake sophomore running back Julian Rodriguez (23) running the ball with stiff arm up at Lake Community Stadium. (Drake Harlett | Sentinel-Tribune)
By Nicholas Huenefeld
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
MILLBURY — Defensive breakdowns led to a tough night for the Lake football team on Friday as Maumee’s big-strike offense capitalized en route to a 49-7 victory inside Lake Community Stadium.
“Watching film at halftime, we had guys there, but we just made some mistakes in the secondary and let some guys get loose behind us,” Lake coach Lane Bishop said. “I thought that we had guys in the right spot. We just didn’t make plays on some of those.”
Maumee’s Carson Graetz had touchdown receptions of 49 and 83 yards in the second and third quarters. Quarterback Ben Kubicz also linked up with Will Kubicz on a 61-yard touchdown strike in the second quarter, while Cohen Jones rumbled for a 58-yard touchdown run in the fourth.
Outside of that, Cody Wulf had three touchdown runs from inside the five for the Panthers (4-2, 1-2 NBC), who didn’t need more than seven plays on any of their touchdown drives.
“We have a lot of returning starters on the outside, and obviously Cody Wulf in the backfield, and Ben Kubicz coming back for us always allows us to have a big play,” Maumee coach Evan Karchner said. “We can have a third and 15, and we can make a play and get a first down or a touchdown. We’re just thankful we have those guys that play hard and put themselves in opportunities to be successful.”
Offensively, Maumee produced 478 yards on 40 plays in just over 20 minutes, which included 311 yards in the first half. They reached the endzone on seven of eight drives, including their final six.
Ben Kubicz finished with 247 yards through the air on 9-of-13 passing, while Wulf totaled 109 yards on 19 carries.
Meanwhile, Lake (2-4, 0-3 NBC) had six of its nine drives end in four plays or fewer.
The Flyers were held to 98 yards on 31 plays in the first half, but broke out for 121 yards over two drives in the second half, which included a 12-play, 77-yard march that resulted in a 14-yard touchdown run from Iyzck Whalen in the third quarter.
“We were not very good offensively, period,” Bishop said. “Defensively, I thought after their first drive, for the most part, we did a pretty good job against the run. And part of our game plan was to force them to throw the ball.
“They had some athletes, and we knew that going in, but the way we’ve been playing, I think we had to sell out to stop the run, and they were able to make some plays in the pass game. I know we gave up 49 points, but I think some of that was because of how poorly we played offensively.”
Whalen accumulated 56 yards on the ground over 13 carries for Lake, while Carter Behlmer was 5-for-19 passing for 62 yards. Of those completions, four went to Gavin Kohlhofer, who totaled 59 yards.
In the second quarter, Lake had back-to-back drives end with interceptions, including an impressive, off-balance theft from Maumee’s Chris Rivera after Lake had marched 63 yards on 13 plays inside the Panthers 20.
In fact, Rivera’s interception ended Lake’s lone drive of more than four plays in the first half. The next possession’s interception came on the first play of that drive.
With the win, Maumee bounced back from consecutive losses.
“The last two weeks have been tough going against Oak Harbor and Eastwood,” Karchner said. “Believe it or not, our kids last week weren’t too down. We’re still building our program. We want to beat the Eastwoods and Oak Harbors, and we were close last week.
“We had them on the ropes, and I think our kids can say we can be that team. We talked about it and made some corrections, and we said this would be a good week for us to make those corrections and still play tough and want to be the brand of football we want to be.
“This win was huge. It was a good win for us because Lake is no slouch of a team either. That was a good, solid win where we played great in all three phases of the game.”
