McComb Panthers claw their way to the easy win over Beechcroft Cougars 56-18

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David Burnworth | September 3, 2023

On Saturday afternoon, I drove to McComb High School to watch the hometeam Panthers battle the Cougars from Columbus Beechcroft in a non-league game. The Panthers entered the contest with a 2-0 record, the wins had come against Allen East and Crestview. The Panthers are expected to be a force in Division 7, the smallest in Ohio. The Cougars are a much bigger team as they are in Division Three. They came into this game with losses against Division One Thomas Worthington and Division Two St. Charles.

Beechcroft had what looked like an 8-yard touchdown run called back early in the game and from there, things snowballed in such a bad way they were never able to recover. With 7;09 left in the opening quarter on third and long the Panthers were able to convert when Grady Schroeder was wide-opened easily allowing quarterback Blake Wittenmyer to hit him for a first down. Wittenmyer again moved the chains, this time on a fourth and eleven, at the 5:17 mark when he found Braxton Althauser. The 17-play, 73-yard drive ended on a 5-yard run from Brad Miehls. Out of the hold by Braydon Shoop, Chase Woodruff made the point after kick to give us a 7-0 score, with 3:16 left on the clock.

On the ensuing kickoff, a mistake by the Cougars allowed Schroeder to come up with the football putting the Panthers offense right back on the field. Woodruff brought in a nicely thrown ball from Wittenmyer for a 17-yard gain to with a little over two minutes left on the clock. The drive would end with 11:54 left in the half when Miehls used the work from his offensive line, who dominated all game long to waltz in from 7 yards out making this a 14-0 game.

On the ensuing kickoff what looked to be an onside kick was recovered by the Panthers Haden Ebright brought the Panthers offense right back out on the field, where they needed 6-plays to drive 31-yards to make this a 21-0 game. The score came on 3 yard run by Wilson Grubb to make this a 21-0 game, with 10:52 left in the half. Grubb had three straight carries on the drive.

The Panthers used a 14-yard run from Althauser aided in setting up the 8-yard touchdown run by Grubb to make this a 28-0 game, with 5:03 left in the half. At this point of the game, the line play coming from the Panthers offensive line could be called a masterpiece as they were as cohesive as any group I have watched this year.

The Cougars finally were able to use their gigantic speed advantage when Aurelius Scott easily hit a wide-opened Khalil Samual for the 45-yard touchdown to make this a 28-6 game, with 4;53 left in the one-sided opening half. The last 0:54 seconds of the half would bring two scores with it. First, Miehls ran for a 17-yard score, and then for the Cougars on the ensuing kickoff Jaymir Radford took it to the house from around 60 yards out to give us a 34-12 halftime score. I kept hearing from the small but loud Cougars fans how speed kills but in this game, it rarely held true as the Panthers seemed to take the right angle more times than not coupled with the fact they took great angles to negate the speed the Cougars had.

After a 23-yard run from Miehls to get things going the Panthers lit up the scoreboard again on a Miehls 12-yard run that was followed by a Miehls two-point conversion run to make this a 42-12 game thus starting the running clock. The Cougars would get a nice 47-yard catch by Olaoluwa Obayemi on a ball that was tipped. A sack on Scott on fourth and twenty-one by Nickk Bormuth forced a turnover on downs. Miehls easily gained 12-yards from work done by the line. Back-to-back runs from Grubb ended with a three-yard to end the third with the score 48-12.

The fourth quarter started with the point-after kick by Woodruff to make this a 49-12 score. This was the first time I saw a quarter start with the team scoring a single point and this was because of the running clock rule in Ohio. A bobbled handoff by the Cougars resulted in Miehls making a fumble recovery. The final score by the Panthers came on a 37-yard run by Althauser to make this a 56-12 game.

The final Cougar score came on a Scott to Khali Samuel 24-yard pass to make the final score 56-12 Panthers.

My stats

Beechcroft

30 plays

181 yards

Passing 10-18 2 Touchdowns

McComb

63 plays

423 yards

Passing 2-3