VERSAILLES – The Versailles football team struggled in the first half, especially offensively, but rebounded in the second half to defeat Parkway 36-21.
The Tigers had 121 yards in the first half but could only find the end zone once and trailed 14-7 at the half.
Parkway scored first on a 49-yard punt return. The extra point was blocked for a 6-0 score.
The Tigers answered with a 25-yard pass from Alex Wendel to Sam Barga and took the lead with the extra point.
The Panthers then scored on a 17-yard reverse midway through the second quarter and made a two-point conversion to go up 14-7.
“Our defense played solid,” Versailles coach Adam Miller said. “We had a special team blunder, which hurt, but the defense played well.”
Versailles came out in the second half scoring 23 points in less than six minutes in the third quarter.
The Tigers scored on their opening possession with a pass on a fake punt. Josh Steinbrunner threw the ball to Sam Barga, who raced 70 yards to tie the game.
“That’s just a great example of a kid making a play,” Miller said. “Josh was very smart to throw it out to Sam.”
The Tigers scored on their next offensive play when Aaron Mangen ran 67 yards to the end zone, giving them a 21-14 lead. Noah Grisez scored later in the third on a 6-yard touchdown run to increase the advantage to 28-14.
The Panthers were flagged for roughing the center, and the Tigers kicked off from the Parkway 45 and pinned the Panthers deep. Versailles scored on a safety when Parkway got an intentional grounding call while the quarterback was in the end zone.
With that the Tigers went from being down 14-7 to a 30-14 lead with over four minutes left in the third quarter.
The Tigers put the game away in the fourth quarter with another Sam Barga score from 26 yards out.
Parkway scored with under a minute left against the Tiger backups for the game’s final points.
“We were pretty concerned coming into this game; Parkway has done a lot of good things offensively,” Miller said. “To do what we did I’m proud of the kids.”
The Tigers racked up 391 yards of offense. They threw for 208 yards on the night after only having 270 yards through the first six games of the year.
Versailles now is 4-3 on the year and 3-2 in the Midwest Athletic Conference. This upcoming week the Tigers will travel to Coldwater to face the Cavaliers, who suffered their first loss of the season on Friday with a 33-18 defeat at the hands of Minster.
