And it was RTR that got it, winning 7-0 in a defensive slugfest in Tyler
The Panthers offered up enough offensive fireworks against Sleepy Eye United two weeks ago to light up the Tracy sky. Last Friday, they couldn’t find a match.
TMB was held to 126 yards — nearly 400 fewer yards than in its win over SEU — and lost a key section game to Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, 7-0, in Tyler.
“On offense, we definitely made a lot of mistakes,” TMB coach Ryan Kruse said. “They made plays, but we just put ourselves in bad positions too many times. We were at 3rdand-30 at one time — that’s just bad plays — and they had a 2nd-and-30 and made plays. That’s the difference.”
It wasn’t as if the Panthers were unable to move the ball at times and didn’t have some golden opportunities to score.
After a scoreless first half, TMB opened the third quarter with a 32-yard David Schuh jaunt that brought the ball down to the Knights’ 40. It seemed that momentum was on the side of the Panthers at the time, but a TMB penalty and a sack by Brayden Chandler pushed the Panthers back to their own 40. A 1-yard loss forced TMB to punt, and that’s when the momentum shifted to the home team.
RTR reeled off a 13-play drive on its first second-half possession, a drive in which the Knights overcame back-to-back penalties that resulted in a 3rd-and-24 situation from the TMB 31. However, an 18-yard run by Tyson Burns and a Gavin Schreurs 7-yard pass to Braden Nibbe put the Knights in business with a 1stand-goal from TMB’s 6. A 5-yard gain by Burns put the ball at the 1, and Schreurs finished the drive off with a touchdown run and a 6-0 RTR lead. Tyler Wichmann’s PAT put the Knights up 7-0 with 2:22 left in the third quarter.
“I thought we played pretty good defensively at times, but there were times where we just made mistakes,” Kruse said.
TMB responded on the ensuing drive though. Schuh started things with a 14-yard scamper and later rumbled for a 37-yard gain that brought the ball down to the Knights’ 6. After the two teams traded 5-yard penalties, TMB ran it three straight times before Sanow tried a keeper but was stopped at the 2 with just under 11:00 left in the game.
That would be as close as the Panthers would get to getting on the scoreboard. TMB would make some more noise later in the quarter after Sanow hit Griffin Zick over the middle to a 16yard gain, but Sanow was sacked on the next play. Three more incomplete passes spelled the end for the Panthers, The Panther offensive output barely resembled that of two weeks ago, as their lack of a passing game forced them into being mostly one-dimensional for most of the contest.
“We had a couple big runs, but in the pass game we just couldn’t compete anything,” Kruse said. “I thought we had a couple good throws where they had good coverage and we just didn’t make a play, and there were times when we couldn’t get the throw off.”
Schuh finished the game with 121 yards on 24 carries, a 5-yard-per-run average, but he was about the only offensive highlight for the Panthers, who fell to 2-3 overall and 1-2 in the Mid-South.
“It was a big game because with where everyone is sitting, now they have two wins in the section, and us and Sleepy Eye are at one,” Kruse said. “An MCC has two already. It’s going to make it tough to get to that two, three seed. I think we can still get there depending on how things shake out, but it’s going to be tough.”
TMB’s defense played perhaps its finest game of the season. The Panthers’ bend-but-don’t-break defense allowed 213 yards, but the Knights had few scoring opportunities all night. Schuh had a team-high 13 tackles and three tackles for loss, and Sy Sanders had six tackles and three TFLs as well. Emery Xiong recorded a second-quarter interception — the Panthers’ ninth of the season.
