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Montgomery has three backs go for more than 120 each in rout over Canton 48-6 in districts

By Jon Gerardi 6 min read

MONTGOMERY -- The Montgomery offense has three talented running backs who at any given point in a game can turn the tide and shift momentum.

It's a three-headed monster that excels each week, and Canton never had an answer for that group which consists of Briar Persing, Josh Knoebel and Lincoln Miller.

Montgomery's backfield accumulated nearly 300 yards of offense by halftime en route to a dominating 48-6 performance against Canton at home in the District 4 Class A semifinals.

That's the Wing-T offense running as effectively as you could hope.

"Hey, that's our Wing-T offense. It's not a one-man show, it's not a two-man show, it's balanced. Look at their stats for the year, there's three who are legitimate contenders to break 1,000 yards in our offense this year," Montgomery coach Joel Knoebel said. "It just shows our execution, our balance and how hard they run. If they're not running the ball, they're blocking and they're blocking effectively. Great effort we're getting on the ground game."

Briar Persing ran the ball 11 times for 162 yards and three touchdowns, Josh Knoebel had 15 carries for 136 and a touchdown and Lincoln Miller had 15 carries for 122 and two touchdowns. It was a ground game that was run to perfection as the Warriors couldn't stop Montgomery all night.

Th Red Raiders had drives of 61, 43, 69, 79 and 46 yards to open the game before the break. Four of those drives going for touchdowns as one resulted in a lost fumble.

Montgomery held just a 7-0 lead going into the second quarter, but then the Red Raiders' offense dialed it up.

Canton would make it a 14-6 deficit when Bailey Gardner had a one-yard touchdown run to cap a 10-play, 65-yard drive. But Montgomery responded on the very next possession to make it a 21-6 lead and kept the foot on the gas from there.

"Call it a sucker punch, call it what you want; we've taken a couple this season and we don't let it bother us. We go right back to what we're doing," Knoebel said. "They couldn't stop our ground game. We were probably averaging 7, 9 yards per carry the first two series. We give up a touchdown? Hey, we're learning a new game, we're executing it tonight. Had a couple breakdowns that led to their score and fixed that up. We don't let it bother us. We just play downhill football."

Persing had a monster second quarter as he had three touchdown runs, two of which came off well-executed reverse runs that let him pop a 37-yard run and a 46-yard run to take a 28-6 lead into halftime with 1:30 to play.

Montgomery scored three times off Canton turnovers. One came with Persing's finals core in the second quarter, capping a 46-yard drive off a fumble recover off a kickoff.

And in second half, Montgomery had back-to-back touchdown drives after recovering Canton fumbles.

"We tell our defense every day in practice: I wanted the ball back. When we're on defense, I want the ball back for an opportunity for our offense to put points on the board, and it's really coming through with these guys," Knoebel said. "Tonight, we came out with a totally new defense for us. I feel we executed it very well. We got things to tweak, but very great execution tonight defensively."

With 8:20 to play, the Red Raiders scored when Lincoln Miller had a two-yard run -- his second of the day just over a minute after he had a 43-yard run -- and the Red Raiders went ahead 42-6.

Canton would put together a 63-yard drive on six plays, but Canton coughed it up on the 1-yard line and Montgomery recovered it on the three.

From there, the Red Raiders used a 16-play, 97-yard drive to punch in their final touchdown to go up 48-6.

Canton's longest drive was a 10-play, 65-yard drive on its third possession to score. Other than that, Canton had a 43-yard drive which resulted in a punt, and a 63-yard drive which resulted in a lost fumble. No other Canton drive went for more than 9 yards, and five were held to zero or negative yardage.

"We put a lot of time this week into teaching the defense we rolled with tonight. It went off very well and you can see we executed it very well tonight, too," Knoebel said. "It's going to make us a lot more versatile as we keep going week after week."

The Red Raiders had 475 yards of total offense in Friday's rout over Canton, 460 of it came on the ground as Montgomery ran the ball 50 times, routinely churning out positive yardage against the Warriors' defensive front.

Canton ended the game with 146 yards of total offense. Gardner led Canton's offense as he had 13 carries for 87 yards and a touchdown.

Canton turned the ball over four times, losing three fumbles and throwing an interception.

Now Montgomery is back in the District 4 Class A championship game for a second straight season after falling to Line Mountain in a close game last fall.

"I wouldn't say we're happy, I would say we expected to be there. That's been our mentality the whole season. We expect to win, we expected to play in the district final from preseason," Knoebel said "So yes, we're very pleased we are on pace to achieve our goals."

Montgomery 48, Canton 6

Canton 0 6 0 0 -- 6

Montgomery 7 21 14 6 -- 48

First quarter

M--Josh Knoebel 3 run (Dylan Sherman kick), 8:03.

Second quarter

M--Briar Persing 1 run, 8:54 (Sherman kick), 8:54.

C--Bailey Gardner 1 run (pass failed), 4:11.

M--Persing 37 run (Sherman kick), 2:49.

M--Persing 46 run (Sherman kick), 1:30.

Third quarter

M--Lincoln Miller 43 run (Sherman kick), 9:42.

M--Miller 2 run (Sherman kick), 8:20.

Fourth quarter

M--Hayden Denton 7 run (kneel), 5:58.

TEAM STATISTICS

C M

First downs 7 27

Rushes-yards 29-127 50-460

Passing yards 19 15

C-A-I 2-8-1 1-4-1

Total yards 146 475

Fumbles-lost 4-3 1-2

Penalties-yards 3-35 5-35

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING--Canton, Brooks Wesneski 7-13, Bailey Gardner 13-87 TD, Brayden Tucker 7-21, Owen Moore 2-6. Montgomery, Josh Knoebel 15-136 TD, Briar Persing 11-162 3 TDs, Lincoln Miller 15-122 2 TDs, Holden Bennett 1-12; Gage Furman 1-(minus 1), Landon Livermore 5-17; Hayden Denton 1-7 TD, Waylynn Burrows 1-5.

PASSING--Canton, Owen Moore 1-6-1 14; Brooks Wesneski 1-2-0 5. Montgomery, Gage Furman 0-1-0 0; Landon Livermore 1-3-1 15.

RECEIVING--Canton, Aaden Dowling 1-14, Brayden Tucker 1-3. Montgomery, Briar Persing 1-15.

INTERCEPTIONS--Canton, Owen Moore 1. Montgomery, Landon King 1.

SACKS--Montgomery, Brick Bonilla 1.

Starting at /week.