Indians shut out Panthers

FORT RECOVERY - The Fort Recovery football team hadn't always played perfect but they had remained so record wise through the first four weeks of the season.

On Friday night, the Indians were just flat out perfect.

Caleb Martin completed 16-of-20 passes for 241 yards and four touchdowns, Wes Wenning had eight receptions for 117 yards and Kyle Schroer tallied three total touchdowns (one rushing, two receiving) in a 41-0 win over the winless Parkway Panthers on Homecoming night at Barrenbrugge park.

"That was a pretty complete football game for us," Fort Recovery coach Brent Niekamp said. "I feel really good about all phases of the game."

Fort Recovery's first-team offense produced touchdowns on six consecutive drives to start the game and totaled 453 yards. Fort Recovery's defense pitched its second shutout in five games and limited Parkway to just 127 yards.

Martin and Wenning combined for all 64 yards on the opening drive, starting with completions of 14 and eight yards to move the ball across midfield. Then Martin sold a fake to Schroer and fired a pass to Martin for a 42-yard touchdown with 9:03 to go in the first quarter.

Roughly three minutes later, Martin threw his second TD pass - this one a 15-yarder to Adam LeFevre.

After starting with consecutive three-and-outs, the Panthers moved the chains for the first time with a nine-yard completion to Caden May and a six-yard run by Peyton Hamrick. Justin Barna hooked up with Logan Huff for a gain of 12 to move the ball across midfield on the next play. That drive was derailed by an intentional grounding penalty and the Panthers gave the Indians short field with a seven-yard punt.

A 27-yard dump off from Martin to Will Homan on a third-and-long set the Indians up at the Parkway 30. Kyle Schroer outraced everyone to the pylon from seven yards away to cap off a nine-play, 50-yard drive with 11:16 left in the half.

Fort Recovery scored again with a double pass a little more than three minutes later. Darien Sheffer caught a pass from Martin and delivered a strike to Schroer, who broke two tackles on his way to finding paydirt from 70 yards away with 8:08 to play.

Martin hit Schroer from 18 yards out for his third TD pass of the half with 1:34 left in the half.

Martin had 188 yards by halftime. On Fort Recovery's opening drive of the third quarter, Martin threw his fourth TD pass to Brandon Schoen, who broke a few tackles, did his best Braxton Miller spin move impression and stomped into the end zone from 14 yards out.

"They're a good football team," Parkway coach Dan Cairns said. "I didn't think they were 41 points better than us. I was a little shocked by the score to be honest with you. They're (third) in the state for a reason I guess. We really thought they were going to try to run the ball on us and they did the opposite, not that we didn't prepare for the passes.

"There's only one thing that I saw them do that we really didn't see in the 588 plays that we broke down. But they executed and their kids made some really good plays and broke some tackles."

May was a bright spot for the Panthers, hauling in five catches for 53 yards. Logan Huff added five receptions for 41 yards. Barna passed for 101 yards. Parkway hosts 5-0 Coldwater next Friday.

The Indians were on the brink of making it 7-for-7 on touchdown drives before time expired with them at the Panther 14-yard line.

"We were able to get Wes and Caleb clicking early, which was good," Niekamp said. "When we got the lead late and we needed to run the ball and just kind of control the game, we did. Defensively, we played really well. Our kids were physical. They had big guys in the backfield and we were concerned about tackling them. We tackled really well. I've got to give a lot of credit to how our players responded and played with a lot of confidence and enthusiasm tonight."

Fort Recovery made a little more history Friday night, becoming the first team from the school to start a season 5-0.

"We feel very fortunate to be where we're at," Niekamp said. "Everybody involved in this team I think understands what this means to our program and our community, and it's a lot of fun and it's also humbling. We want the kids to keep working on getting better."

And they might need to be even better with a brutal schedule to end the season.

After next Friday's game at New Bremen, the Indians have back-to-back matchups with defending state champions Minster (home) and Marion Local (away) before ending the regular season with a pair of playoff hopefuls in St. Henry (home) and Versailles (away).