By Joshua Yoder

MOUNT UNION – Despite being down for most of the game, the Mount Union Trojans kicked, scratched and clawed their way back to force overtime. In fact, the game went into double overtime but it was there that Marion Center came out on top to win 35-27 during the quarter-finals of a District 6 Class 2A football playoff game Friday night.

The Trojans didn’t make it easy for themselves as the Stingers took control of the game early on. Tyler Phillips got it started for them going 10 yards for the rushing touchdown.

However, it was Nasir Collins who responded for Mount Union going 39 yards for the score to even things at seven apiece. Sadly, it was going to be quite a while before the Trojans scored again.

From there on it was all Marion Center as they scored the next two touchdowns both by Mason Ploskunak. His first touchdown came in the first quarter where he went 31 yards for the score making it 14-7. He later scored the lone touchdown of the second quarter going four yards to give the Stingers a 21-7 lead at the break.

Things went scoreless for the third quarter and Mount Union continued to struggle offensively. But the Trojans refused to stop fighting and eventually got a major break during the fourth quarter.

And that break was a big time punt return by Caizon Scott who caught the ball and found a huge running lane down the sideline for the touchdown going 45 yards.

Then later in the quarter, quarterback Maddox Hobbs muscled his way into the endzone completing a nine yard run to even the game up at 21 apiece.

The madness got even crazier during the overtime periods as the Trojans started off with the ball and on their first play Hobbs found a wide open Georgie Bilger for a 10 yards touchdown pass. However, Mount Union failed to hit the extra point which left the door open for Marion Center to win.

The Stingers were able to score on fourth and one thanks to Phillps who scored his second rushing touchdown of the game. They turned to end the game on the extra point but their field goal attempt went wide to the left forcing a second overtime.

Marion Center went first this time and called upon Phillps again who ended up scoring his third touchdown of the game. But then another crazy moment happened as the snap of the ball for the extra point, but Troy Slovinsky grabbed the snap and ran into the endzone for the two point conversion making it 35-27.

The Trojans were determined to respond on their next attempt. However, on their first play, the ball somehow came loose and the ball bounced right into the arms of a Marion player to put the game on ice.

Collins had 20 carries for 75 yards and a touchdown. Josh Ryan had 16 carries for 52 yards and Hobbs had 8 completions out of 12 attempts for 84 with a passing touchdown as well as rushing touchdown. Mount Union compiled a grand total of 227 yards of total offense while the Stingers had a total of 336 yards of total offense for the evening.

Marion Center will move onto the next round.

Congrats to Mount Union on an incredible season!