Northwestern's football team beat Lewis Cass in a 64-55 shootout in Three Rivers Conference action Friday night at Northwestern.
With the win Northwestern moved to 4-0 overall and 3-0 in the TRC. Cass fell to 2-2 overall and 2-1 in the TRC. Maconaquah and Rochester both have 3-0 records as well in the TRC for a three-way tie with the Tigers atop the league.
After the first quarter, Cass led 28-14, but Northwestern came alive in the second quarter outscoring the Kings 20-0 for a 34-28 lead. The Tigers scored on three touchdown passes by Brock Shank. Shank passed to Armani Jackson (39 yards), Hayden Cook (7 yards) and Sam Craig (35 yards).
In the third quarter, Northwestern came out and scored on a one-yard run to by Craig to extend the lead to 41-28. Cass kept it close as Trevor Rowe raced down the field for a 41-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 41-35. It was the closest that the Kings would get in the rest of the game.
The Tigers went on to outscore the Kings 27-13 in the third quarter to lead 61-41. In the fourth quarter, Cass got the things going again by outscoring Northwestern 14-3 for the final to be 64-55.
Before this game started, Cass had scored 60 points in three games, and Cass coach Clayton Mannering said on 102.3 the River, "We scored 28 points in the first quarter, and we didn't feel it was remotely safe. Obviously, we haven't scored 55 points since I have coached here. We knew going in that they were going to score, and we thought it would be our recipe like Peru where we got a couple of stops, but I don't know if we did get a stop [Friday], outside of the last drive which was a punt."
The Kings lost despite putting up 649 yards of offense, 584 on the ground. The Tigers rushed for 174 yards and passed for 431.
Jonny Mack rushed for 250 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries. Rowe had 112 yards and three TDs on 22 attempts. Luke Sparks had 107 yards and a TD on seven carries. Gavin Smith had 77 yards on eight attempts. Jed Frey added 37 yards and a TD on six carries. Cole Rush had a 53-yard TD pass to Sparks.
Both host league foes next Friday with Northwestern facing Whitko and Cass tackling Roches