Kokomo — Coming into Friday night’s tilt with Taylor, Western hadn’t lost a football game to the Titans in the teams’ previous 11 meetings.
The loss that stretched the streak to a dozen had to feel like 12 games’ worth of struggles for Taylor.
Western ran up 464 total yards of offense, scored on its first eight possessions and jumped out to a 38-0 halftime lead on its way to throttling the Titans by a 58-0 final score in both teams’ Mid-Indiana Conference opener.
The win moved the Panthers to 2-1 on the young season and 1-0 in the MIC, while Taylor fell to 1-2 overall and 0-1 in loop play.
Western coach Alix Engle liked what he saw from his club a week after it was handled 49-13 by Eastbrook.
“Our kids really responded,” Engle said. “We had one put on us last week and we needed to get back on track. We lost our focus early in that game and laid an egg, and that wasn’t us. This win [Friday] was all about us.”
The Panthers had no apparent focus issues in Friday’s game, be they early, middle or late. Western opened the scoring just two plays into the contest, when Hudson Featherstone went 64 yards around the right side to paydirt. After managing only a 32-yard John Reeder field goal for the rest of the period, Western exploded in the second quarter.
Two long Quin Fields scoring tosses to Garret Welker — the first good for 67 yards on the period’s initial play, the second netting 40 with 16.8 seconds remaining in the half — put bookends around Western’s 28-point stanza, which also included short touchdown runs by Fields and James Davis.
Western’s defense then put an exclamation point on the half just prior to intermission by sacking Taylor quarterback Tyler Gordon for a nine-yard loss deep in his own territory. Gordon was injured on the play and did not return.
“I thought we had a good gameplan,” Taylor coach Josh Ousely said. “It was a long night with kids getting knocked all over the place. It was 10-0 after the first quarter and we’d moved the ball a little bit, but we just were not able to keep Western off the field. Until we’re able to get people off the field we’re not going to beat anybody.”
“The difference is sheer size and strength. We’re going to get better, but until we grow up we’re going to have nights like this.”
Western’s onslaught continued after recess. Backup quarterback Cameron Herr rushed for two touchdowns and 109 yards on just four carries in the third and fourth quarters, and Cameron Glenn added a 20-yard scoring scamper early in the half. The Panthers tallied 16 first downs in the game, 13 of those on the ground, to Taylor’s one and only failed to score on their final, game-ending possession
“I’m proud of our kids,” said Engle. “We were anxious to see how our younger guys were going to bounce back and I thought our junior varsity and freshmen played well. Credit Taylor for hanging in there and playing it out [Friday]. I’m excited about this team.”
Western travels to Lucas Oil Stadium to face Northwestern on Saturday. Taylor plays host to Peru on Friday.
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