Maconaquah Schools

The Maconaquah Braves remained undefeated and are off to their best start in school history after claiming a hard-fought 42-21 victory at Lewis Cass Friday night. It was Mac's first win AT Cass since 1987 ... when gas was 90 cents a gallon. Prior to Friday night, 28 Maconaquah teams had made the 12-mile trek to Walton and 23 came home empty-handed. Coach Michael Fenters' gang is now 7-0 on the year and is tied with Rochester atop the Three Rivers Conference standings. Both have perfect 6-0 records. Cass is now 3-4 overall and dropped to 3-3 in league play. The Kings lead the overall series, 15-43, dating back to 1965. Mac's seven-game win streak is the second longest in school history, shared with the 1980 and 2019 squads. The 1973 and 1974 teams strung together nine consecutive victories. Maconaquah, ranked ninth in the latest AP Class 3A poll, will host Wabash Friday, while Rochester entertains Southwood. MHS is sporting its highest ranking since the 1991 Braves were ranked #5 before losing at Cass. The Braves will host Rochester in their regular season finale in two weeks with the TRC title on the line if both teams take care of business Friday. The Kings stunned Mac with a time-consuming (9:56) 16-play, 78-yard drive on its first possession to take an early 7-0 lead. With Aiden Robinson returning at quarterback after a two-game absence (injury), the Braves tied the game 69 seconds later as their rattler-like, quick-strike offense covered 80 yards in three plays in the blink of an eye. After Robinson hit Fuddy Kile (22 yards) and Nolan Tarrh (4 yards), speedy AJ Kelly hauled in a pinpoint 54-yard TD pass in stride down the Cass sidelines. Max Sachse booted the first of his six perfect PAT kicks, tying the game at 7-7 on the opening play of the second period. Mac's stopped Cass on its second possession and took over at its own 37 with 8:35 left. The Braves took the lead for good five plays later when sophomore running back Marcell Sims broke free up the middle from 32 yards out, 14-7. Cass threatened to tie the game late in the half after marching 72 yards in 16 plays and using nearly seven minutes of precious clock. After the hosts reached the Maconaquah eight yard line, they coughed it up on the last play of the half with Mac's Joey Butcher recovering and halting the game-tying drive. The Braves have not allowed a point in the second quarter this season. After a Cass 61-yard punt pinned the Braves at their own 14 to open the third stanza, Robinson and crew moved to the King 40 on three pass completions and a 25-yard Sims run. Mac's lead ballooned to 21-7 at the 8:23 mark on a Robinson-to-Kile 40 yard TD strike. Forced to go to the air, Cass fell behind 28-7 on its first play of the ensuing drive when Sims stepped in front of an errant King pass and raced 21 yards to paydirt. He would add another score (two yard TD run) late in the quarter after Cass closed the gap to 28-14 with 3:21 remaining. With his three-TD night, Sims becomes the 20th player in school history to surpass 100 points in a career. He now has 102 points, tying him with Luther McDonald in 18th place on the MHS all-time scoring list. He finished the game with 90 yards on nine carries. Maconaquah added its final points with 10:49 left in the game when Kile caught a short pass and used his patented slick moves and stiff arms in dancing to the endzone from 36 yards out. He finished with 166 yards on 11 receptions. It was the 15th game of his career with 100 or more yards. He now has 3566 yards receiving in his career and moved to seventh place on the state's all-time receiving yardage list. In his return to action, Robinson completed 16 of 18 pass attempts good for 297 yards and three Brave TD's. He becomes only the second signal-caller in MHS history to throw 20+ touchdowns in a season. Braxton Birner did it twice, tossing 36 TD passes last year and 31 in 2022. Cass came into the game averaging 305 yards rushing and finished with 264 on 58 attempts against Maconaquah's swarming defense that had the state's second-best defensive average (allowing 2.5 points per game) entering the game. Unofficially, junior Carsten Hollars led the Braves with 19 tackles. Dakoda Dauenhauer had 13, while Sims was in on 11 stops. Landon Morgan finished with nine. Kelly and Tarrh were each credited with seven.