Panthers suffer first loss in home stand to West Burlington/Notre Dame

MT. PLEASANT — Mt. Pleasant football was looking to post its best start to a season in seven years on Friday night against West Burlington/Notre Dame.

With a win, the Panthers (1-1) would have been 2-0 for the first time since 2017.

However, the Falcons (2-0) didn’t let that happen as a stellar rushing attack late led to a 31-10 victory over the Panthers.

The Panthers showed poise early, forcing the Falcons to punt on their opening drive.

Mt. Pleasant then used a heavy dose of Cooper Coleman, who rushed five times on the Panthers first drive, to get down the field. The Panthers were had to settle for a field goal after being stopped on 3rd and 5.

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A field goal from Dylan White gave Mt. Pleasant the 3-0 lead.

It didn’t last long as the Falcons put together a 14 play drive that culminated in six. The Panthers had the Falcons at 4th and 12, but Landry Haberichter found Liam Stensgard in the end zone to give WB/ND the lead.

From then on to the end of the half it was a defensive battle.

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The Panthers went three and out on their next drive, but they got the ball back just four plays later after Payton Walker picked off Haberichter on the Falcons side of the field.

“I thought our defense was playing pretty lights out there for the first three quarters,” Mt. Pleasant head coach John Bowlin said.

Despite the great field position, Mt. Pleasant struggled to move the ball and after a false start pushed the Panthers five yards back they were forced to try for another three.

This time the kick was off and the Falcons got the ball back with a chance to score with just over two minutes remaining.

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WB/ND rattled off another big drive, running 11 plays, which included a 25 yard pass completion and a 30 yard run to put the Falcons deep into Panther territory.

The defense stepped up once again with WB/ND knocking on the door.

After a Falcon rush put them inside the 10 yard line, the Panthers hunkered down with just seconds remaining. Instead of a touchdown, WB/ND had to go for the field goal with just five seconds to go in the half.

Heading into halftime, the Falcons led 9-3.

The Mt. Pleasant defense came up big once again after the offense had to punt.

WB/ND fumbled on its first possession of the second half and the Panther offense finally got going.

A four yard drive was capped off with Payton Walker finding pay dirt on a 19 yard scramble, giving the Panthers a 10-9 lead.

“You know that was a huge stop at the end of the first half and then [we] came out and took the lead in the second-half right away just like we planned on doing,” Bowlin said.

To the Panthers dismay, that was their final points of the night as the Falcons began to move the ball in chunks offensively and their defense began to click.

Mt. Pleasant had to punt on their next three drives.

“Our defense gave us the ball back two times [in the second half] and we couldn’t do anything on offense,” Bowlin said. “Those are on me. I got to mix some things up a little better there. We had holes, but we were missing them. I have to give credit to their D, they were flying around playing hard.”

Meanwhile, the Falcon’s Quincy Collins scored three rushing touchdowns in the second half. He tallied 189 yards on the ground in the game.

The Panthers had an opportunity to stay in it. After a Collins touchdown, Mt. Pleasant recovered a fumble and made WB/ND punt on back-to-back drives, but the Panthers couldn’t turn it into points.

“They got a little stronger than us at the end and we were definitely tired and not able to finish the game as well,” Bowlin said.

Copper Coleman led the Panthers with 66 yards rushing in the loss. Payton Walker and Merrick Lamm both had 10 yard receptions.

Zach Newton threw for 20 yards.

Walker led defensively with an interception, fumble recovery and 14 tackles. Jared Dorothy also had a fumble recovery.

Mt. Pleasant will be back at home once again this week as the Panthers host Tipton on Friday, Sept. 13.