The Niles junior varsity football team defeated visiting Mattawan Thursday night 24-12.
Logan Harpenau threw for a touchdown and ran for another for the Vikings.

Harpenau tossed a 55-yard scoring strike to Brandon Partee and then scored on a quarterback sneak from a yard out.

Martell Miller had a 60-yard touchdown run for Niles.

“Offensively it was a tough night,” Niles coach Josh Bourne said. “The entire first half was a struggle to try and assert ourselves moving the football and hanging on to the football. Our offensive line, coming off a great game against Portage Central did not have their best night last night, as Mattawan’s defense stunted through our line early and often.
“Mattawan also did a great job of ripping at the ball which forced a couple of early turnovers from our backs. We made a lot of early mistakes, but fortunately we fixed them in the second half and was able to overcome them and put some drives together,” he added.

Bourne said the Vikings’ defense played well. He singled out the play of Quinton Irby, Brandon Partee and Zack Fillwock at linebacker and nose guard Brian Moody.

“Our defense was put on the field a ton because of our offense,” Bourne said. “Sometimes they were put in some awful positions and they continued to come up with stops. Our defense forced three fumbles from Mattawan in the second half, which proved to be the deciding factor in us winning.”

Niles will host Lakeshore next Thursday night.

Freshmen football
The Niles freshmen football team lost its first game of the season to an undefeated Mattawan team 31-28 Thursday night.

The Vikings jumped out to a 14-0 lead after one quarter and 22-13 advantage at halftime.
Mattawan went on to take the lead in the fourth quarter and went on to win 31-28.

Touchdowns were scored by Fritz Findeisen, who had a 10 yard run, Anthoney Bice had two touchdown runs and caught a 40 yard pass from Chris Mangus to score again.

Big plays on defense were made by Findeisen, Alec Landon and Alex Wentz.

Defensive coordinator Jim Brawley noted that the Vikings played hard, but did not execute at times.

The Vikings are 4-1 and play Lakeshore next week at home.