Hardin Northern’s Brandon Henicle attempts to get a hold of Waynesfield-Goshen’s Drew Breitigam during Friday night’s game at Waynesfield.
Jackelyn Johnson | The Lima News
WAYNESFIELD — Undefeated and outright Northwest Central Conference champions.
Waynesfield-Goshen had plenty to celebrate after the Tigers downed Hardin Northern, 35-7, to secure the outright conference title Friday night.
W-G finishes off the regular season with a perfect 10-0 mark and a 7-0 mark in the NWCC. Hardin Northern drops to 6-4 for the year and 5-2 in conference play.
Tiger head coach Shane Wireman said this is a great accomplishment and will enjoy this before preparing for the postseason.
“It is a good feeling to complete this but now everyone is 0-0 and its a new season and let’s see how we end up in the rankings,” Wireman added. “I just think from when I first took over is incredible and it is the kids. They dedicated themselves to weight room and worked hard for this and it all came together.
“We have an unselfish team and it is real fun to coach when everybody is like that. They don’t care who gets the ball and who gets the credit. They just want to win and that is what they are doing. It shows Friday after Friday and hopefully we can keep it going in the next several weeks.”
This is the second time in school history that W-G has gone undefeated in a season with the last time being in 1989 and this is the first conference crown since 2011. Members of the 1989 team were on hand to revel in the victory and offer support.
“This feels good,” Wireman said. “The guys did a nice job. It was a tight game early and we needed a good tune-up and those guys brought it and played a physical football game on both sides of the ball. It was a nice challenge for us.”
As has been the case all year, the Tigers dominated on both sides of the ball to record the victory.
On offense, Tiger quarterback Drew Breitigam put in another impressive outing as he spearheaded the offense that came up some trademark big plays as well as grinding it out on the ground.
Breitigam finished the game with 126 yards on 14 carries and one touchdown. Through the air, the Tiger signal caller was 13 of 22 for 225 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Both of his touchdown tosses went to Dalton Jordan who had touchdown catches of 44 and 17 yards and finished the game with five catches for 110 yards and two touchdowns.
Both of the scores came in the first half that allowed Waynesfield-Goshen to open up a 28-7 at halftime.
“I would like to see us a little more cleaner,” Wireman said. “We had some penalties and they made it tough to run for our guys with different things. We did a lot of things right but we have some things we need to coach up as well.”
Defensively, the Tigers were one big play from securing their third straight shutout and sixth of the year. The Polar Bears’ lone score came in the second quarter after Polar Bear signal caller Nolan Hopson connected with Xander Wilson for a 54 yard touchdown pass. After making the extra point, W-G led 14-7 with 6:08 left in the second quarter.
However that was one of the few offensive highlights for the Polar Bears who never established a consistent running game and W-G continually put pressure on Hopson. The Tigers recorded three sacks and had two interception.
Hopson finished the game 5 for 14 for 107 yards
“That is what we wanted (another shutout) but hat’s off to them and they got us on that throwback wheel and it was a nice play for them,” Wireman said. “Hat’s off to our guys. We have been playing well defensively all year and we want to hang our hats on that and compliment our offense with field position.”
Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.
