The Miami Trace Panthers welcomed the Blue Devils from Zanesville High School to complete the non-conference portion of the 2018 schedule, the half-way point in the season, Friday night.
Rain fell prior to the game, but there were no weather delays on a warm, humid evening.
The Panthers exerted a tremendous effort, but Zanesville came away with a 27-13 victory.
Miami Trace moved the ball down the field on their first possession to the Zanesville 12-yard line.
That drive stalled, however, with the Blue Devils taking over on downs.
Zanesville scored on their first possession with an 18-yard pass from Ben Everson and Dekker Davis.
The extra-point kick was good by Gabe Dolen.
That score came with four minutes to play in the first quarter.
It remained 7-0 until Justin Shoemaker put the Panthers on the board with a 21-yard field goal at the 8:01 mark of the second quarter.
The score remained 7-3 in favor of the visitors at the halftime intermission.
In the third quarter, Zanesville added to its lead with an 18-yard pass from Everson to James Curtis.
With a miss-played snap, the Blue Devils tried a two-point conversion pass that was no good.
Zanesville took a 13-3 lead with 8:37 to play in the third quarter.
Later in the third quarter for the Panthers, Dalton Mayer caught a short pass from Tyler Taylor and ran 84 yards for a touchdown. Shoemaker’s kick pulled the Panthers to within three points, 13-10, with 3:27 to play in the third quarter.
Early in the fourth quarter, Everson broke free on a busted play and ran 74 yards for a score. The extra-point kick by Dolen gave Zanesville a lead of 20-10 with 10:12 remaining in the game.
Shoemaker connected on his second field goal of the game, this one from 37-yards out, to cut the margin to 20-13 with 7:56 remaining.
The final score of the game was a 10-yard pass from Everson to Curtis. With the extra-point kick, Zanesville, with 1:11 to play in the game, set what would be the final score, 27-13.
Taking a look at the unofficial statistics, Miami Trace had 266 yards of total offense to 284 for Zanesville.
The Panthers (now 2-3) begin Frontier Athletic Conference play next week with a Homecoming game against the McClain Tigers. McClain is now 1-4 overall after a 34-14 loss Friday to Troy Christian.
