Despite a close win that turned into a bit of a romp over Whitewater Friday, the McIntosh High School football team is officially a force to be reckoned with.
The 35-15 win positions McIntosh for a battle away with crosstown rival Starr’s Mill Friday night at 7:30 p.m.
The tilt with 5-2 Whitewater began tight as promised, with both defenses keeping zeroes on the board until nearly 5 minutes left in the first half. McIntosh quarterback Andrew Johnson connected on a 4-yard pass to Josh Ange in the endzone for the first strike and a 7-0 lead.
That score held up until the end of the third quarter when Johnson and Ange connected again to go up 14-0.
Whitewater immediately responded on the next drive with a 4-yard run from Christian Wafford, who tacked on a conversion run to close the gap 14-8.
This is a time that many McIntosh fans in years past have seen their team crumble: with the thinnest of leads against a solid opponent. But this year’s team is different, and so was the result: the Chiefs tacked up a 4-yard sneak from Johnson to go up 21-8.
Whitewater would roar back on their very next play from scrimmage with an 80-yard bomb to again keep it close, putting the score at 21-15.
Yet unlike McIntosh teams of previous years, instead of folding to an inevitable defeat at the hands of a strong team, these Chiefs poured it on in the fourth quarter with a 32-yard strike from Johnson to Sean Ingram to make it 28-15.
While that essentially iced the game with less than three minutes to go, the McIntosh defense held the Wildcats to a four-and-out, which led to the final Chief score of the evening with a 4-yard run from Ange that put the final at 35-15.
Some might criticize McIntosh for “piling on” with the final score instead of taking a knee at the Starr’s Mill 10-yard line to run out the clock. Other observers, however, saw a frustrated Chiefs team looking to take out a measure of revenge for the punishment handed to it over the years.
Only time will tell if this year’s Chiefs have the muster to go deep in the playoffs, but this much is for sure: next week’s game against Starr’s Mill pales in comparison to the Oct. 25 road match against region foe Creekside.
It’s safe to say few predicted McIntosh would be in the driver’s seat of its own playoff destiny, but that’s exactly where they find themselves at this point.
