Shotts runs for 198 yards, Meadows, Holloway nab key INTs as Zebras beat Central Noble

Val T.

2 minutes ago

5 min read

Next: home vs. Eastside in sectional final

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Kale Shotts Grant Holloway Aiden WIlson

ALBION — Kale Shotts ran for 198 yards and three touchdowns, and Trenton Meadows added 88 yards and a pair of scores as the Rochester football team earned a wire-to-wire 36-13 win over host Central Noble in a Class 2A, Sectional 34 semifinal Friday.

Meadows and Grant Holloway each had an interception in the second half on defense as well, and Rochester would go on to convert both takeaways into touchdowns.

Holloway also had 42 yards rushing and had the Zebras’ only pass reception, a 41-yarder from Mitchell Clark in the first quarter that set up a touchdown.

Shotts, Holloway and Jordan Gonzalez each had a two-point conversion run.

Ryan Lemish threw two touchdown passes for Central Noble, who finished 2-9.

Rochester improved to 6-5 and will host No. 4 Eastside at Barnhart Field in the sectional final next Friday. Eastside is 11-0 after a 41-13 win over Bremen.

“I feel like we learned a lot of lessons throughout our losses,” junior tight end-defensive end Aiden Wilson, who often harassed Lemish defensively and got extra snaps as a tight end offensively, said. “We learned we can’t get down on each other because we’re a family. I’m proud of the way we stepped up, and we talked each other back up if we made a mistake. We’ve learned lessons throughout our losses.”

Rochester advanced to a sectional final for the first time since 2022 and just the second time since their most recent sectional title in 2000. They had been 1-13 in their last 14 sectional semifinal games.

Rochester led 14-0 at halftime, but if Central Noble put the lead in peril, it came at the outset of the second half.

Lemish drove the Cougars 55 yards in seven plays and capped the drive by evading pressure from defensive ends Gavin Pinder and Wilson, rolling to his right and finding Elias Antuñez, who straddled the sideline and caught the ball in the end zone between Meadows and Holloway for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 2.

Squire Hopf’s extra point cut the lead to 14-7, and Rochester’s next drive resulted in a three-and-out and a 16-yard punt from Alex Chapman.

Central Noble had the ball back at their 39. Three plays later, Meadows stepped in front of Lemish’s pass intended for Porter Kleeberg and intercepted it at midfield.

“It was huge,” Rochester coach Isaac Shaffer said. “They had all the momentum. You know, they’re firing on all cylinders, both offensively and defensively. We’re struggling on offense to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and he’s able to come up with that interception. I felt like the defense was strong all night, even that one touchdown they had. They scored on a fourth down where they had to run a scramble play. It was a busted play, and they made a real good play to get that score. We felt really confident in our defense all night that if we could flip the field position a little bit, they would be able to respond, but they came up huge all night for us.”

After the interception, an excited Meadows got up and spun the ball down on the ground and was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, moving the ball back to the Rochester 35, but the Zebras followed with a 65-yard drive.

Holloway converted a third-and-7 with a 24-yard run on a toss around the left perimeter. He followed with a 9-yard run. Three plays later, Shotts ran for 13. Three plays after that, Rochester faced third-and-9 from the 11, but Shaffer called for a fullback trap, and Shotts went up the middle for 10 yards and a first down. He scored from the 1 on the next play and added a two-point conversion to make it 22-7.

“Really, our game plan was to stop 33 and stop 7,” Central Noble coach Gabe Stuck said, referring to Shotts and Meadows, respectively, by uniform number. “We knew their offense goes through them. Thirty-three, he ran hard all night. Sometimes he gets so low he’s just really hard to bring down. So a lot of credit to their offense and their ability to control the ball. But we knew dive sweep was going to be what they were going to run all night. But even though we knew they were going to run, you’ve still got to stop it. That’s what we had a challenge all night trying to do.”

Holloway’s interception came on Central Noble’s first drive of the fourth quarter. He returned it 59 yards for a touchdown, but a holding penalty at the Central Noble 30 negated it.

The Zebras then shook off the penalty and drove 40 yards in seven plays, all runs. The last three plays were all power runs to the right, and Meadows scored from the 4 to make it 28-7.

Lemish’s 6-yard touchdown pass to Zack Chenoweth made it 28-13 with 2:32 left, but Rochester freshman Luke Enyart recovered the onside kick at the Zebra 45.

Shotts followed with a 55-yard touchdown run, but offsetting penalties – a personal foul facemask on Central Noble and an unsportsmanlike conduct on Shotts for taunting as he neared the end zone – meant that the down was to be replayed.

Holloway lost 3 yards, but another personal foul facemask penalty on Central Noble gave Rochester a first down at the Central Noble 42.

Shotts then went 42 yards on another trap, following an alley created by guard Derek Wortley and breaking attempted ankle tackles and going down the right sideline for a touchdown.

“We felt like trap was a really good play for us, especially to some of their different personnel,” Shaffer said. “So we ran it quite a bit tonight.”

Neither team scored on their first two possessions as Rochester did not take advantage of a 2-yard punt from Lemish that gave them the ball at the Central Noble 37.

But on Rochester’s third possession, they broke through.

Clark floated a play-action pass on first down that Holloway snagged in stride behind the defense. Chenoweth tackled him at the 10, but Meadows scored around the right perimeter on the next play.

After an exchange of punts, Central Noble turned the ball over on downs with 8:05 left in the half at the Rochester 23.

Rochester then took 6:55 off the clock in going 77 yards in 13 plays. Meadows’ 6-yard run converted a fourth-and-2 from their own 31, and Shotts accounted for 67 of the yards. He capped the drive with a 7-yard touchdown run, and Holloway’s two-point conversion made it 14-0.

Central Noble drove to the Rochester 21 to end the half before running out of time. Aiden Wilson and Gavin Pinder were the defensive ends responsible for containing Lemish in the pocket. Pinder was filling in for Owen Lett, who was out with an ankle injury.

“I thought I did a pretty good job getting around him and causing a little disruption for their quarterback to make him scramble pretty much,” Wilson said.

Afterwards, Shaffer noted the big task ahead next week.

“They’re tough,” Shaffer said of Eastside. “They’re physical. They’re fast. They’re a fantastic football team. We’re going to have to play mistake-free football just to have a chance to win. We’ll look at the tape and see if we can find some weaknesses, but I doubt we’ll find very many.”

Rochester 36, Central Noble 13

Rochester 6 8 8 14 – 36

Central Noble 0 0 7 6 – 13

First quarter

RHS – Trenton Meadows 10 run (run failed)

Second quarter

RHS – Kale Shotts 7 run (Grant Holloway run)

Third quarter

CN – Elias Antuñez 2 pass from Ryan Lemish (Squire Hopf kick)

RHS – Shotts 1 run (Shotts run)

Fourth quarter

RHS – Meadows 4 run (kick failed)