TROJAN FOOTBALL: Trojans’ season ends with loss to Tri-City United

MONTGOMERY — The Worthington Trojan football team lost to Tri-City United 31-13 in the first round of the Section 3AAA playoffs Tuesday to bring their season to a halt.

“We were in the ball game for a while,” WHS coach Brad Grimmius said. “But we had way too many turnovers to stay in it for long.”

Tri-City United excuted well on offense and was able to establish its run game against the Trojans.

“They ran the ball right down our throats,” Grimmius said. “It was a good game up until the turnovers. The turnovers were really a turning of the tide in the game.”

Aside from the problems the Trojans had keeping the ball in their hands, Worthington was unable to make blocks or tackles for most of the game.

“We didn’t block or tackle well at all tonight,” Grimmius said. “We were doing well until the interception at the end of the first half.

“They returned it for some good yards and it led to a touchdown that put us behind 20-7 at the half. We never regrouped after that.”

Troy Ektnitphong led the Trojans with 70 rushing yards on 18 carries, while A.J. Hayenga had 30 yards and a touchdown. Marcus Potter rounded out the rushing game with 26 yards on nine carries and one catch for eight yards.

Blake Schroeder was 4-for-8 passing with two interceptions, but he did score a rushing TD. Will Dudley completed one pass for 41 yards. The Dudley pass was to Will Mulder and set up the Trojans’ fourth-quarter touchdown.

Defensively, Hayenga picked off a pass from Tri-City United’s quarterback.

Even though the end of this season is still fresh in Grimmius’ mind, he sees a bright future for his young team.

“We should be returning a lot of kids next year,” Grimmius said. “We have some speed coming back, but we still need to get bigger up front. We just need to get our game to where we want it to be.”

One thing the Trojans will miss most going into next season is the leadership that this year’s seniors brought to the team.

“We are going to miss the leadership our seniors showed this year,” Grimmius said. “We dealt with a lot of adversity at the beginning of the season and the seniors did a good job of battling through it. There was no ‘I’ player in the whole group. They were all really positive kids.”

Trojans 0 7 0 6 — 13

TCU 14 6 11 0 — 31

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