Photo by Jake Przytarski TMB’s Griffin Radke carries the ball during their game against MCC on Wednesday. The Panthers defeated the Rebels 22-6.

TRACY – A smothering defensive effort by the Panthers forced three Murray County Central turnovers in the first half with two being converted into touchdowns as Tracy-Milroy-Balaton ended their regular season on a high note with a 22-6 win over the Rebels. When asked to assess the stout performance of the defense, Panthers head coach Jason Kainz pointed to the work in the trenches by the defensive line as a key to the strong play of the unit as a whole.

“We finally played a good game on defense,” said Kainz. “We haven’t played a complete game on defense for a while. We had control of the line of scrimmage right at the beginning of the game, we loosened up a little right at halftime there and they were starting to move the ball, but we came back out in the second half and established the line of scrimmage again. We’ve been waiting to that for quite a while knowing that we could so that was fun to see.”

The Panther defense came out firing on all cylinders to begin the night as they forced forced a three-and-out on the first Rebel drive followed by back-to-back turnovers on the next two Rebel with both ending in touchdowns. Sawyer Otto found paydirt from a yard out and took to the air for their second touchdown with Luc Gervais making the grab to take a 16-0 lead early in the second quarter.

In what looked to be a turning point for the fortunes of the Rebels after generating a turnover of their own with an interception, a fumble recovery on the ensuing play of the drive gave the ball right back to TMB who made the most of the opportunity, going 21 yards for another score to take a commanding 22-0 lead midway through the second quarter.

With the Panthers beginning to run away with the lead, the Rebels began to establish some momentum of their own on a late first half drive that caught fire with explosive passing plays that brought them into the red zone. With a one-yard plunge by quarterback Mason Woldt, MCC got on the board for their first score that provided them some hope heading into halftime trailing 22-6.

Out of the half, a re-energized Panthers defense clamped down once more with a strong effort highlighted by a monster sack by Konnor Zick that forced a third and long that the Rebels couldn’t convert, resulting in a punt on the opening drive. Fortunately for the Rebels, the defense was able to hang tough on the Panthers first drive of the half to get the ball right back in need of a big drive to chip away at the deficit.

In their best drive of the game, the Rebels grinded out a long drive that began at their own 25-yard line and brought them down to the Panther red zone. Bending but not breaking, the Panthers held on and made a critical fourth and goal stop early in the fourth quarter.

Pounding the ball and milking the clock on offense on their next possession, the Panthers were unable to find the end zone but did enough to hold on for the 22-6 victory to move to 6-2 on the season.

With the regular season now in the rear view, Kainz is making sure that no opponent is taken lightly the rest of the way for the Panthers.

“We can’t take anything for granted,” said Kainz. “We’re most likely going to see Martin County West (and) you know they might only have one win coming in but last year St. James is 0-4 coming in and they took it to us (and) we got lucky to win that game, so we can’t overlook anybody in that class. It doesn’t matter what their records are right now, it’s all 0-0.”

Rebels coach Patrick Freeman is hoping to eliminate some of the costly turnovers heading into the postseason and emphasized the need to find a balance with their running and passing attack.

“We want to make sure that we take care of the football (and) go back to the fundamentals and make sure that we’re a more physical team,” said Freeman. “When we can establish the run, our passing game improves. We were too one-dimensional today, so we want to make sure that we get back to being balanced.”