PEMBERVILLE — Wauseon senior quarterback Trey Parsons found senior receiver Tyson Rodriguez on a 65-yard touchdown pass with 29 seconds remaining to give the Indians a 14-7 win over Eastwood Friday at Jerry Rutherford Stadium.

Rodriguez caught the ball near the 10-yard line, stiff-armed and then side-stepped a defender to find his way into the end zone.

“My guy Trey just threw it up trying to make a play, and I made a play,” Rodriguez said. “I was just trying to get in. That was my one goal — trying to get in.”

Wauseon coach Shawn Moore said after a defensive game fought in the trenches, he knew that was all the Indians needed was one play to take the victory.

“Eastwood is a good team. We knew it was going to be a physical fight back and forth, and they never gave up and our kids never gave up,” Moore said.

“We knew it was just going to take one play. It was all we wanted to get, and we were able to get the look that we wanted.

“Then, our stud receiver, Tyson Rodriguez, made a heck of a play, and we got it in the end zone right there at the end for us. We are super excited to come out with a victory against a good team.”

Parsons finished the game completing 9-of-16 passes for 130 yards, including four to Rodriguez for 100 yards and both Wauseon TDs. Parsons also ran for 83 yards on 11 carries.

While Parsons takes the snap from center, it seems Rodriguez is the guy who the Indians count on to do everything else, including booting punts of 50-plus yards.

“He’s a heck of a player,” Moore said. “He’s out there leading our defense, he’s leading our offense, he’s leading our special teams. If he wants to play, he’ll play at the next level. He’s a heck of a player in all sports.”

After the non-league slugfest between two teams expected to contend within their respective conferences, Wauseon improves to 2-1 while Eastwood, suffering its’ first loss, falls to 2-1.

“It was a great battle, a great team (Eastwood) of course, we just did great all-around. It was amazing,” Parsons said.

“It’s amazing the perseverance. Every one of those guys put in hard work all summer long and all of spring break to make this happen.”

Rodriguez added, “I thought it was good for us, and up front it was good, and as the game went on we were just tougher and tougher.”

The odd thing was Eastwood dominated time of possession but a 2-1 margin, but the Eagles just could not find the end zone.

After Wauseon scored the game’s first touchdown on a 22-yard pass from Parsons to Rodriguez, Eastwood responded with a 13-play, 68-yard drive to the Wauseon six-yard line.

On fourth down, Eastwood senior place kicker Noah Haar successfully converted a 23-yard field goal, but the Indians were called for offsides, so the Eagles decided to try and go for six points from the three-yard line.

Rodriguez stuffed Eastwood running back Caiden Maize at the two-yard line, forcing a turnover on downs.

The game went back-and-forth with 14 punts — eight by Wauseon and six by Eastwood, until the Eagles put together a 21-play, 81-yard drive that covered seven minutes and 18 seconds, leading to a two-yard TD pass from junior quarterback Kadyn Donnell to senior tight end Kaiden Sanchez.

Eastwood had 103 yards passing and 51 yards rushing and led Wauseon in first downs 14-10. The Eagles opened the season in a similar style game, but defeated Ottawa-Glandorf 21-19.

“We’ve kind of been in this situation before, but it ended up going our way,” Eastwood first-year coach Sam Cotterman said.

“It feels like we gained a lot of yards. It feels like we moved the ball and then we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot. That is what makes losing hard.

“If you play a team that is better than you and you have a good fight, then that is one thing, but when you make the mistakes that we made, that is hard to swallow,” Cotterman continued.

Donnell completed 16-of-30 passes for 90 yards, and sophomore QB Drew Luidhardt 2-of-7 passes for 13 yards for the Eagles. Donnell also ran for 48 yards on 17 carries and Luidhardt had 16 yards on two carries.

For the Eagles, junior Andre Lewis had seven catches for 54 yards, Sanchez had three catches for 18 yards, junior Dayquan Oliver had three catches for 17 yards, junior Brock Messinger caught two passes for nine yards and Maize had three catches for five yards.

For Wauseon, junior running back Ryan Friend ran for 39 yards on 13 carries, junior receiver Wyatt Smith had a catch for 17 yards, junior Braylon Miller had three catches for 10 yards, and senior Austin Kovar had one catch for three yards.

Wauseon also was the beneficiary of the game’s only two turnovers — Logan Patterson recovered a fumble on Eastwood’s first possession, ending a drive at the Wauseon 25 that saw three Eastwood first downs and covered 40 yards.

Wauseon sophomore defensive back Kahle Albright had an interception of a Donnell pass.

For Eastwood, junior defensive lineman Paul Lautzenheiser had seven tackles, senior linebacker Andrew Badenhop had six tackles, and senior linebacker Austin Maize had four tackles.