Breaking News
Local Sports

Firebirds taken down by Mavs

By Travis Rosenau 4 min read

GIBBON -- The Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Firebirds struggled to move the ball against a strong Martin County West defense on Friday night, and losing one of their top playmakers in the first quarter with an injury didn't help matters.

Cayson Gosewich did all he could to move the chains for the Firebirds after Matthew Lee exited with a hand injury, but the Mavericks got several big plays from a host of players to run away with a 38-0 win on Friday night in a Mid-South District, Gold Subdistrict football game.

One big playmakers for the Mavericks was -- as expected -- Pierce Rohman, who ran for three TDs. One of them was deflating for the Firebirds, who got close to the red zone for the first time all game in the third quarter before turning it over on downs. MCW's first play on its ensuing drive was a 75-yard TD run by Rohman.

GFW, now 0-5, entered its Homecoming game Friday looking to make things tough on the now 4-1 Mavericks and get into the win column, but Lee, one of its two leading rushers and defensive players, was forced out of the game on GFW's second drive of the game with a hand injury after being tackled.

"Losing Matthew, Matthew's kind of the soul of our offense and defense," GFW head coach Travis Vorwerk said. "Lasy year he was one of our best players, too, so it's a big loss. We could have really folded. It could have been 40-0 going into the half, but we kept going in there. I thought at halftime we made some nice adjustments, but we came out and executed it, so that's really, really good. That's just the way it is."

The Firebirds also looked to get sophomore quarterback Kellen Nachreiner involved more but were often unable to pull down a catch on a handful of one-on-one opportunities. In the fourth quarter, he completed a screen to Collin Hacker, but Hacker's knee hit the turf to blow the play dead with a loss of a yard. His next pass was intercepted by Noah Meixell.

Earlier in the third quarter, Nachreiner threw a 30-yarder to Koufax Rose, but the ball hit off the front of Rose's shoulder pads and he was unable to haul in a catch to bring up fourth down. A run after that went for a few yards and turned it over on downs. That drive was GFW's longest of the game and was just the second time the Firebirds got it past midfield in the game thanks to three first-down runs by Gosewich.

After that, Rohman took off for his 75-yard score and put the Mavericks up 28-0 after a 2-point conversion run, also by Rohman.

"We're trying, we're trying to establish [our offense]," Vorwerk said. "We've got the young kid [Kellen Nachreiner], so we're gonna try to play. He had some nice reads where he kept them and he had some nice runs. He had some throws, we've just got to make the play as a receiver. We hit them in the hands, so that's all good things. We just keep building."

MCW started the game with a few big runs and a big GFW facemask penalty to help set up a 10-yard TD run by Rohman on a pitch to the left side. The 2-point try was no good, making it 6-0 with 10:24 left in the first.

The teams exchanged punts before GFW punted again to give the ball to the Mavericks around midfield. This time it was MCW quarterback Maddex Faber getting involved with a 27-yard TD pass to Preston Cepress in stride for a 14-0 lead after a 2-point throw to Meixell with 11:55 left in half.

MCW got on the board again with 4:57 left in the half after Rohman took another pitch left into the end zone from 2 yards out for a 20-0 lead, which ended up being the halftime score.

MCW went up 28-0 on Rohman's third score of the day and 36-0 after a Faber TD keeper of 9 yards and a 2-point catch by Jackson Wilmes. MCW got its final points on a safety after a high snap went out of the back of the end zone on a GFW punt attempt late in the fourth.

GFW did get some nice plays from its defensive backs in the game as Rose and Hacker each had an interception.

Gosewich finished with 82 yards rushing, while Nachreiner ran for 60 yards and Hacker had 47 yards receiving.

GFW hosts Lester Prairie next on Friday night.

Starting at /week.