Maconaquah Schools

The Maconaquah Braves continued their assault on the record books at home Friday night with a 35-0 victory over the Peru Tigers. Fresh off their Three Rivers Conference championship, the Braves (now 10-0) will host Twin Lakes (5-5) in second round action Friday with the winner advancing to the IHSAA Sectional 27 title game in two weeks. Twin Lakes defeated Western 31-6 in its tourney debut. Coach Michael Fenters' gang is the first MHS team to win 10 games in a season. The shutout is the fifth blanking of the year for Mac, tying the school record set in 1963. It was a record ninth straight home win for the Braves who were ranked eighth in this weeks AP Class 3A poll (Mac's highest ranking since 1991). It was the first time in the MHS-Peru series, dating back to 1963, that the Braves have registered back-to-back shutouts against their county rival. Maconaquah won at Peru, 42-0, five weeks ago and trimmed Peru's overall lead in the series, 30-24. The Tigers ended their season at 5-5. Peru came ready to play in this one, but in the end Maconaquah's rock-solid defense and the pass-catch combo of Aiden Robinson and Fuddy Kile proved to be the difference. The duo combined for four of Mac's five touchdowns (one in each quarter) and continued to add their names to the record books along the way. Kile's four TD receptions tied the school mark he set last year vs Cass and gives him 334 points in his illustrious career, moving him past Cody Hicks into second place on the all-time scoring list at Maconaquah. He finished with 171 yards on 10 receptions. Robinson, meanwhile, added a 47-yard TD bomb to AJ Kelly early in the third quarter and finished with 319 yards on 22 of 29 firing. His game-high 319 yards broke Maconaquah's single-game post-season record of 318 set by Jon Morrell vs West Lafayette in the 1987 sectional championship contest. He has now thrown 35 TD passes this season and is one away from Braxton Birner's single-season record set a year ago. The soph signal-caller has now thrown 129 consecutive passes without an interception, establishing another MHS record. He is one of three quarterbacks in the state averaging 300+ yards passing per game and owns the top quarterback rating in Indiana. After Maconaquah stopped the Tigers on their opening drive, the Braves took over at their own 21 with 7:39 left in the first quarter. After four passes to Kile and Kelly moved Mac to the Peru 14 the Robinson-to-Kile duo hooked up from there for the Brave's first score. Max Sachse's perfect PAT kick made it 7-0 at the 5:27 mark. Sachse, an exchange-student from Germany, would add four more PAT kicks in the game and set school records for most PAT attempts in a season (45) and most PAT kicks made (42). Richie Leary held the previous records set in 2019. The Braves squandered another chance to score the at the end of the opening act when Peru's fired-up defense stopped Maconaquah cold on four attempts from the two yard line. Mac's lead ballooned to 14-0 with four minutes left in the second period with Kile hauled in a nine-yard scoring strike from Robinson. The Braves got the ball back, with another chance to score three minutes later when Marcell Sims pounced on a Peru fumble. With 1:06 showing, Kile moved Mac to the four yard line, grabbing a 50-yard Robinson aerial. Once again, the Tigers dug in and snuffed out a late score by stopping MHS on three incompletions and a short loss by Sims . . . 14-0 Braves at intermission. Maconaquah has now outscored its foes in the second quarter this year, 164-0. Maconaquah took the second half kickoff and needed only 54 ticks to take a 21-0 lead when Kelly took a pretty 47-yard pass to the endzone. The senior speedster finished the game with 117 yards on five receptions. The Braves' next score came with 4:41 left in the third period when Robinson hit Kile with a short TD pass from five yards out. The Brave's defense set up a final score when Peru gambled and failed to cash in on fourth down try deep in its own territory at the end of the third stanza. Taking over at the Tiger 35, Robinson threw a pair of short passes to Nolan Tarrh and a 20-yarder to Kile, before the Robinson and Kile ended the night's scoring and settled the issue on a three-yard TD pass with 11:49 left in the game. In command, 35-0, the IHSAA "Mercy Rule" went into effect and the remainder of the game was played with a running clock. Maconaquah's pesky, swarming defense bottled up Isaiah Korba, the TRC's leading rusher, and has now held opponents scoreless in 31 quarters this season breaking the previous mark (30) set in 1978. Peru's deepest penetration into MHS territory all night was stopped at the Mac 21 on the Tiger's opening drive. Peru never crossed Maconaquah's 37-yard line the rest of the game. "We won this game because we were better prepared mentally and physically," said lineman Darwin Santos following the hard-fought battle. Senior lineman Austin Ringeisen and his buddies up front have cleared the way for Mac's offense to rack up the most touchdowns (62) and most yards of total offense (4122) in school history. Sims led the MHS rushing attack with 92 yards on 12 carries and needs only 47 more to break Carter Little's sophomore rushing mark (1,000) set in 2018. Carsten Hollars, Maconaquah's leading tackler on the year, led the Braves with 18 tackles. Kile and Tarrh each had 10, while Ringeisen and Dakoda Dauenhauer finished with nine and eight respectively. Joe Butcher, Landon Morgan, Kelly and Sims were all credited with six stops. Ringeisen had a pair of tackles for loss, while Butcher and Gabe Jenkins each had one TFL. Peru finished the game with 179 yards rushing on 48 carries and added 17 yards through the air.