Mississinewa drops tough game to New Haven

Coming off an excellent effort against Lapel last weekend, the Mississinewa Indians faced, arguably, their toughest opponent of the season in the New Haven Bulldogs.

The Indians gave it their all from beginning to end, and despite a valiant effort, Mississinewa was unable to hold the Bulldogs in the final seconds in an eventual 36-32 loss.

Even in the tough defeat, Funk was proud of how his team played against a tough opponent.

“My number one goal for the team Friday night was for us to show tremendous effort and toughness, and our kids showed that all night,” head coach, Curt Funk, said. “Unfortunately for us, we fell short at the end. We had a lot of guys who played a lot of minutes on Friday night. It was a very physical game, and at the end, we just didn’t have enough gas in the tank.”

After New Haven scored a touchdown on their opening possession and after a slow start on offense, the Indians finally found their rhythm, as running back phenom, Heisman Skeens, scored from five yards out to get the Indians on the board.

Later in the first quarter, the Indians took the lead of the game after quarterback Cade McCoin found wide receiver Hunter Smalley for a 10 yard touchdown pass on 4th down. A successful two point conversion gave the Indians a 16-6 lead.

Much like last week, the Indians’ opponent took the momentum, as the Bulldogs scored at the end of the second quarter and near the end of the third to take an 18-16 lead over Mississinewa, setting up what would turn out to be a wild fourth quarter.

After the Indians took the lead back on a one yard sneak from McCoin, New Haven tied the game back up at 24 on an 11 yard touchdown pass. Just under two minutes later, McCoin threw an errant pass, which went the other way for another score, and just like that, New Haven led 30-24 with just over four minutes and a half minutes to play.

For the second week in a row, the Indians did not panic, methodically moving the ball down the field before capping off the drive with a five yard touchdown run from Cade Campbell. Campbell ran it in for the two point conversion on the following play to give the Indians a 32-30 lead.

Unfortunately for the Indians, there would be no late game heroics this week, as New Haven worked their way down the field and scored with 25.2 seconds left on the clock to win the game and hand Mississinewa their first loss of the season.

Now, heading into next week’s match against the Blackford Bruins, Funks wants his team to keep focusing on the fundamentals in order to get back into the win column.

“I told our kids that this week has to be more about us as a team [rather] then who we are playing,” Funk said. “We have got to get our team right as far as basic fundamentals.  We are going to work on making sure our execution and timing are crisper heading into next week’s game [against Blackford.]”

Cade McCoin finished 4-for-14 for 66 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions, while Campbell and Skeens combined to rush for 232 yards and two touchdowns in the loss.

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