The oldest and youngest residents of Grant City were honored at the Worth County-Rock Port football game Friday night at halftime. Billie Humphrey was honored as the oldest woman; she is 96 years old and has lived in Grant City for 93 of her 96 years. She still remembers Mrs. Clark, her first grade teacher, 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Kibbe, and high school teacher Sadie Simmons. She said that she never wanted to live anywhere else. She spent many years serving the school and community as a teacher, business owner, and volunteer for the community. She and her husband Veryl ran the Art Shop on the Square for many years.
The oldest male resident of Grant City was Harold Fletchall, who has lived in Grant City since 1944. He has three children and six grandchildren. He worked for many years at Prugh & Sons and as a custodian at the Worth County School. He has been a member of the Grant City Baptist Church since 1949. He has also served as a member of the VFW Post 3123 and as a scout leader of Troop 62 in Grant City. Kelly May Baker, aged 16 days, was honored as the youngest resident of Grant City.
Unfortunately, there was little else to cheer about besides the dance team, who performed between quarters, the band, which performed at halftime, or the cheerleaders when they were throwing souvenirs into the stands during some of the numerous water breaks as Rock Port beat Worth County 62-14 in a game that was called late in the fourth quarter.
Compared to the first game, Coach Chris Healy, coaching his first game, told his team that he saw some good things in the game, but that they had to get tougher. He said that the defense was solid, but that the offense had too many penalties, turnovers, and mental mistakes. The team cut down on their penalties to some extent, but there were still way too many false starts from players not knowing what the count was. There were a lot of balls on the ground due to the sweltering heat and Worth County had to defend for much of the night with their backs against the wall, always a tough job for any defense to be in. But the biggest reason the Tigers struggled offensively was because nobody accounted for Chandler Farmer, Rock Port's defensive end and linebacker. He was breaking into the backfield at will, forcing fumbles and throwing Tiger backs for losses. He had one quarterback hurry that led to an interception and forced one fumble that led to Rock Port scooping the ball up and scoring. He had at least 10 tackles for big losses that night.
One of the few sustained drives that the Tigers had all night happened in the fourth quarter because they finally started accounting for Farmer and they knocked him on his back twice as they were able to move into Rock Port territory. But they were still not doing it consistently enough as Farmer had a quarterback hurry that killed the drive on fourth down. One of Coach Healy's stated goals to his players following the game was to get back into the top five on the News-Press leaderboard; in order to do that, they will have to do a much better job of accounting for the other team's best defenders.
Defensively, they did well enough that they were able to force Rock Port out of simply handing it to Jayden McMahon for 30+ plays like they did last year. Truman Moore was a force on defense and provided one of the few highlights, stealing a pitch and going in for a score despite getting tangled up with the referee in the fourth quarter. Josh Warner added a sack on Farmer, Rock Port's quarterback.
Doomsayers were predicting that the game would be called at halftime, something that has not happened in quite some time. It looked to be the case at first as Farmer broke a long run for a score and the long snapping game turned out to be a problem area for the Tigers. The first bad snap led to Rock Port's second score as the blue shirts outhustled everyone to the ball. Then, another bad snap happened as all three backs looked at each other confused as the ball was once again on the ground; Worth County had to eat the ball; two plays later, yet another bad snap resulted in a safety to put Rock Port up 16-0. On the ensuing kickoff, Wyatt Rush made a momentum-changing play that finally swung the game back in Worth County's favor as he made a perfect one on one tackle on speed merchant Eric Duncan and Rock Port for once struggled with penalties and went three and out.
Worth County took advantage after Lane Craven caught a screen pass and took it eight yards to turn third and long into fourth and one. Wyatt Rush got a good surge from the line and picked up four for the first down to the Blue Jay 31. Wyatt showed himself to be strong in short yardage situations on offense and he was able to spell Brevyn Ross at halfback. Brevyn Ross ripped off 11 yards down to the 20 on a sweep, Wyatt picked up seven more off a quick count, and a few plays later, Ross dove into a small hole and got in with 9:42 left in the second to make it 16-8 with 9:42 left.
Worth County had Rock Port third and four at their own 30 thanks to a play in which Truman and four other Tiger defenders swarmed McMahon for a loss. But then someone forgot to cover Dylan Lee and he caught a long pass all the way down to the Tiger 20. That set up a 20-yard score from Farmer as everyone got blown out and Rock Port was back up 22-8 with 8:19 left. Worth County had a chance to get back into the game as Brevyn Ross took a short pass 33 yards down the right sideline to set up first and 10 at the Rock Port 20. But then someone forgot the count and a false start moved it back to the 25 and the blocking broke down on the next few plays to give Rock Port back the ball on downs.
Worth County nearly caught a break on the next series when a block in the back penalty wiped out an apparent Rock Port score, but a long pass to McMahon, who beat his defender to the 4, set up Eric Duncan's score to make it 28-8 with 4:34 left in the second. Worth County could not respond before the half. Worth County got the ball to start the second half, but one of many missed blocks on Farmer led to a fumble and a blown coverage, the second one of the night, resulted in a Rock Port score that made it 34-8, too much for Worth County to make up.
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