Ishpeming Hematite John Corkin heads down the field with the ball during their game against the gwinn Model Towners Friday. (Journal photo by Trinity Carey)

ISHPEMING — Overtime football games aren’t a common occurrence in Marquette County or anywhere else in the Upper Peninsula.

However, on Friday night, an area contest went into the extra session for the second time this fall. This time, it happened on the west end as Ishpeming and Gwinn battled in a tale of two halves.

The Hematites dominated the first half, taking a 30-8 lead into the break, but the Modeltowners rallied in the second, tying it at 30-30.

In the end, it was Ishpeming that prevailed as it stopped Gwinn on fourth down, and then John Corkin sprinted up the middle with the winning score on a 6-yard run to give the Hematites a 36-30 victory.

“That was a barn-burner,” Ishpeming head coach George Niemi said. “We were expecting that. They’re (the Modeltowners) well coached. They’re young and they’re hungry. We were expecting a dogfight.

“It was a great first half. Anytime you can go up 30-8 at halftime, you expect to be able to come out and do some things. But they made some adjustments and they were able to get some passes.

“We made a couple errors with penalties and things like that to continue drives and gave up some third-and-longs. They were able to convert those third-and-longs and hats off to Gwinn. They played a great second half.”

Niemi also gave a lot of credit to Corkin for showing a lot of leadership during the game and even suggesting what turned out to be the winning play.

“John was hurting and cramping up and barely walking,” Niemi said. “He came over to me and said ‘Here’s the formation I want to run and here’s how we’re gonna do it.’ I said ‘All right, let’s do it.’ The line opened up the hole and John did his job and got through it.”

For the Modeltowners, it was yet another heartbreaking defeat. Gwinn lost its season opener in overtime to Bark River-Harris and the Modeltowners still haven’t gotten into the win column.

Gwinn head coach Dion Brown was in good spirits, though, after the game and gave his team a lot of credit for coming back in the second half.

“I told the guys (at halftime) to go in there and think about it because our season has been going just like that,” he said. “We scored on our first possession, the first play of the game, and the kid was covering up the tight end. I went over that play 25 times because I knew that play was going to be a touchdown from what I saw on film.

“Then we got two turnovers and then a kickoff where we fumbled. So we gave them three turnovers in the first half and got ourselves into a hole. I told the guys ‘Hey listen, we can stop them. Let’s just play clean-free football because when we play clean-free football, this team is good.’

“We’re all sophomores and juniors. Hopefully, they grew up tonight and will limit their mistakes.”

Ishpeming got on the scoreboard first late in the first quarter. After recovering a Gwinn fumble, the Hematites took three plays to get into the end zone on a Corkin 14-yard run. With the conversion, Ishpeming led 8-0.

Gwinn answered back quickly. Using their passing game, the Modeltowners picked their way through the Ishpeming secondary before quarterback Caleb Anderson connected with James Harnick for a 13-yard touchdown. With the conversion, the score was 8-8 with 32 seconds left in the quarter.

However, the Hematites took control for the rest of the half. Ishpeming scored three touchdowns in the second quarter, two of them on runs by Otto Swanson and Dawson Delongchamp, to take a commanding 22-point advantage to the half.

Some teams might have wilted at that point, but the Modeltowners didn’t give up. Gwinn pounced on an Ishpeming fumble deep in Hematites territory and three plays later, Anderson hit ToQuan Starnes with a 5-yard touchdown pass.

After stopping Ishpeming short of the marker on a fake punt attempt, the Modeltowners got into the end zone again two plays later on a 15-yard pass from Anderson to Shafaar Evans. Gwinn also got the conversion and now only trailed by eight at 30-22.

With time running down in the fourth, the breaks started to truly go the Modeltowners way. Harnick made a diving catch to convert on third down and made another nice one on fourth down to bring the ball deep into Ishpeming territory. Three plays later, Anderson scrambled across the goal line on a 5-yard run and then found Starnes in the end zone for the conversion to tie things up at 30-30.

In overtime, Gwinn scored first on a leaping catch by Harnick, but it was waved off due to offensive pass interference. The Modeltowners were then flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct and ultimately came up empty on their possession.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.