UNION CITY – In football, they say it’s a game of inches. That never rang truer than in Mississinawa Valley’s showdown with Dixie, where the Greyhounds escaped with a 27–26 win after the Blackhawks came up just short on a late two-point conversion and a potential game-winning catch on the final play.
Dixie struck first when Noah Metcalf found paydirt on a 19-yard touchdown run. A mishandled snap wiped out the extra point, but the Greyhounds took a 6–0 lead with 7:25 left in the first quarter.
Mississinawa answered immediately as Ashton Amspaugh returned the ensuing kickoff 52 yards to the Dixie 32. Three plays later, junior Cooper Nieport broke loose around the right side for a 31-yard touchdown. The extra point was blocked, but the Blackhawks pulled even at 6–6 with 6:24 remaining in the opening frame.
The Mississinawa defense then came up big, stopping Dixie on a 4th-down attempt just short of midfield. Riding the ground game, the Blackhawks marched again, and freshman Caleb Spradling scrambled on third down, breaking contain for a 10-yard touchdown run. The PAT failed, but Mississinawa had its first lead, 12–6, with 8:46 to go in the second quarter.
Dixie responded by driving into the red zone, reaching the 10-yard line before the Blackhawks stiffened. Facing 4th-and-7, the Greyhounds elected to try a field goal. The kick had plenty of leg but sailed wide right, and Mississinawa held its 12–6 advantage with 3:52 left in the half.
The momentum swung moments later when the Blackhawks threw an interception deep in their own territory at the 17-yard line. On the very next play, Dixie’s Nathan Metcalf took the handoff and raced 17 yards to the end zone. The point-after attempt missed, but the game was tied 12–12 with 1:51 remaining in the half.
Mississinawa tried to steal back the lead before the break. Spradling hit Amspaugh on a nice pass play, and the junior wideout weaved his way out to the 37-yard line. However, a fumble on the next play ended the threat, and the teams went into halftime deadlocked at 12–12.
The Blackhawks, who elected to receive the second-half kickoff, mishandled the ball and Dixie recovered at the Mississinawa 35-yard line. The Greyhounds quickly capitalized as Nathan Metcalf scored his third rushing touchdown of the night, this time on a nine-yard run around the left side. The extra point gave Dixie a 19–12 lead with 10:07 left in the third quarter.
Mississinawa had the answer. Junior running back Colton Hiestand burst free for a 60-yard run to flip the field, then finished the drive a few plays later with a 3-yard plunge. The Hawks went for two, and Amspaugh hauled in a Spradling pass in the back of the end zone to put Mississinawa back on top, 20–19, at the 8:33 mark of the third.
At that point, it felt like whoever had the ball last might pull out the win.
After the teams traded punts, Dixie pieced together another strong drive to retake the lead. This time it was Ayden Hipp punching it in from two yards out. Hipp then connected with Elijah Dillon on the two-point conversion for a 27–20 Greyhound advantage with 11:21 remaining in the game.
Back came the Blackhawks with an another nice drive all the way into the red zone. Then facing a critical fourth down at the 9-yard line, Caleb Spradling found Cooper Nieport in the back of the end zone who snared the catch to pull Mississinawa within a point 27–26.
Mississinawa chose to go for the lead with a two-point conversion rather than attempt the tying kick. Spradling swung a pass into the left flat to Hiestand, who turned up field toward the front pylon. A wave of Greyhound defenders met him around the 4-yard line. Hiestand shook off one low tackle at his ankles and another high, then was hit again near the 2-yard line along the sideline. Somehow, he kept his feet inbounds and extended his left arm with the ball toward the goal line as he went down. It looked, in real time, like the game-winning conversion, but the trailing official ruled Hiestand inches short, and Dixie clung to its 27–26 lead.
Trying to put the game on ice, Dixie mounted another drive, but the Mississinawa defensive line bowed up on 4th down at the 37-yard line, giving the Blackhawks the ball back with 3:32 to play and one more chance.
The Hawks went back to work, steadily moving the ball toward the goal line as the clock wound down. Once again, it seemed destined to come down to the final possession.
With under 30 seconds to go and the ball on the 7-yard line, Mississinawa threw incomplete on second down, then spiked the ball to stop the clock. That set up one last play: 4th-and-goal with the game on the line.
Under heavy pressure from the Dixie rush, Spradling rolled and floated a pass where only his receiver could make a play. The Blackhawk target elevated and got his hands on the ball, but as he came back to earth, it slipped through his fingers. Dixie held on for the 27–26 victory.
Despite the loss first year coach Mississinawa Valley coach Lane Manning sees some positives in the game.
“That one hurts. I don’t want to take anything away from the Dixie team — that was a hard-fought game from our guys,” Mississinawa Valley coach Lane Manning said. “Very proud of the way they played tonight. They never gave up. Even in adversity, they just kept plugging along, kept pushing, kept being physical. I’m very proud of the way they played tonight.”
Manning pointed to discipline as an area for improvement.
“Keys to the game are just keeping our heads in it and limiting the penalties we had,” he said. “There are some small things we need to clean up in how we approach the game. We’ll just keep plugging away, repping it out and grinding in practice and putting one foot in front of the other.”
The Blackhawks’ ground game was a bright spot as they ran for 230 yards on 27 carries led by Hiestand with 125 yards on 14 rushes and a TD. Cooper Nieport had 62 yards on 7 runs, and a TD and Caleb Spradling 5 runs for 39 yards and a TD.
“I think our ground game really worked well tonight,” Manning added. “We mixed up some personnel in the first half. I think everybody played well, even those who took some first reps in their position. Just kind of mixing some things up, but I was very impressed with our ground game tonight.”
Defensively, he singled out Hiestand and the interior line. Hiestand had 11 solo tackles to lead the Blackhawks.
“Defensively, Colton Hiestand was outstanding — he’s always a force back there — and a shoutout to the D-line as well, especially our interior guys,” Manning said. “They just kept the pressure up. They’ve been putting in some really good reps this week, and our D-line, I think, was the star of the show on defense tonight.”
Despite the heartbreak of coming up inches short, Mississinawa Valley walked off the field with plenty to build on — a punishing ground game, a resilient defense, and a group that refused to fold when the game tightened. Now 0–2 overall and 0–1 in the WOAC, the Blackhawks will try to turn that effort into their first win of the season when they travel to Bradford on Friday. The Railroaders sit at 1–1 after a 28–8 victory over Twin Valley South last week, setting the stage for another early-season test.
