If the Oxford Wildcats intend to contend for the Flint Metro League title they must shine on Friday at Lapeer East.
The Wildcats hurt their chances for title contention last week with a 13-0 shutout at the hands of Lapeer West.
Oxford has one loss in league play while East is undefeated in league play at 3-0 and 6-0 overall. East clinched a state playoff berth with their sixth win.
A victory by Oxford will put East, the Wildcats and Linden in a three-way tie. Oxford plays Linden the following week and finishes the season hosting Fenton.
The Wildcats will likely need six wins to qualify for the state playoffs.
In order to stop Oxford, West had to play its best game of the year.
The shutout is believed to be the first time Oxford has been kept off the scoreboard in more than seven years.
The Cats had only 188 yards in total offense, including only 74 yards offense in the second half.
Oxford’s best two scoring chances resulted in missed field goals, of 42 and 32 yards. Both kicks by Mike Jones barely missed their target.
Jones first attempt came with about eight minutes left in the second quarter. The Wildcats got good field position on the drive due to an excellent punt return by Chris Harper that got the ball into Panther territory.
It appeared as though the teams would go into intermission scoreless but West mounted a solid drive with less than a minute left in the quarter. The Panthers started the drive on their own 37 with 57 seconds left. Three first-down pass completions moved the ball down to Oxford’s 15.
West’s Jeff Dillon kicked a 32 yard field goal with only 1.4 seconds showing.
Oxford had one of its best offensive drives of the game midway through the third quarter when the team marched down to West’s 17. On a fourth down and two, Jones attempted a 33-yard field goal that was barely wide to the right with five minutes left in the quarter.
The Panthers again stopped Oxford’s offense early in the fourth quarter and took over following a punt on their own 29. Two plays later, West quarterback Tony Garcia threw a bomb over the middle to Dillon who was in back on the Oxford secondary and ran untouched 76 yards for a touchdown with 7:19 left. Dillon kicked the conversion to give West a 10-0 lead.
The Panther defense stopped Oxford’s offense on the ensuing drive and took over on downs on the Wildcat 31.
West moved down to Oxford’s five before Dillon added his second field goal, of 23 yards with 2:54 left.
Oxford gained only 188 total yards, including 83 passing yards.
West collected 363 yards of offense.
Quarterback Garcia was 10 for 11 passing and netted 153 yards. Dillon caught four of the passes for 129 yards.
The victory was West’s second win of the season.