Mt. Pleasant falls on homecoming

MT. PLEASANT — The Mt. Pleasant football team knew it had its hands full on Friday night as the Panthers invited in an undefeated Fort Madison team for homecoming. The Panthers couldn’t pull the big upset, falling 42-7 in the district opener.

“They do a lot of things schematically very well,” said Mt. Pleasant head coach Shawn Striegel. “They take what the defense gives them, and they do it well.”

Fort Madison scored four times in the first half. The Bloodhounds capitalized on a handful of Panther miscues, scoring on a Jakob McGowan rushing touchdown to make it 7-0 and then getting a trifecta of touchdown passes from quarterback Landes Williams.

“I think we did more to ourselves than Fort Madison did to us,” Striegel said. “They're a very talented team, but we had bad snaps, bad reads and a lot of stuff we did to ourselves early.”

The Panthers had a strong start to the second half. Jacob Richtman picked off Williams on Fort Madison’s opening drive, his second interception of the year. On the ensuing Mt. Pleasant drive, Carson Coleman hit Payton Hagans on a 44-yard touchdown pass.

Mt. Pleasant had the ball down 21 in the third quarter, but the Panthers wouldn’t score again.

Leading 28-7 in the fourth quarter, Fort Madison sent two-straight daggers into Mt. Pleasant. The Bloodhounds scored a rushing touchdown in the final 10 minutes, and then scored on a pick-six off Coleman to end the scoring.

Mt. Pleasant is now 1-4 overall and 0-1 in district play. The Panthers will travel to Iowa City Liberty next weekend, where they will play on Liberty’s homecoming night.