West Michigan Mayhem women's football team runs wild over Columbus

by Paul Morgan | Kalamazoo Gazette

Saturday July 11, 2009, 11:57 PM

John A. Lacko / Special to the Gazette The West Michigan Mayhem's Danielle Daughtry (10) dances away from Columbus' Andrea Judy (9) to score her team's second touchdown on Saturday at Vicksburg High School.

VICKSBURG -- Quarterback Jody Markwart knew that the unbeaten West Michigan Mayhem women's football team was pretty good.

"All along, we knew we had something special going, but until you face competition that's close to you, that can push you, you don't really know," she said.

After beating the unbeaten Columbus Comets, 41-12, on Saturday night here in the quarterfinals of the Women's Football Alliance playoffs, they know that this team can be very good.

The Mayhem (9-0) advance to the semifinals and will play the winner of Saturday night's Philadelphia-Indianapolis game on July 25 at Vicksburg.

"This game was huge because we were ranked third in the league and Columbus was fifth," coach Matt Koch said. "These girls banded together against a good team and showed they are an amazing group."

Markwart ran Koch's run-and-gun offense to near perfection. She rushed the ball 10 times for 95 yards and hit 15 of 22 passes for 171 yards and two touchdowns. West Michigan rushed for 193 yards and passed for 171 yards, "which was perfect," Koch said. "Our balance was terrific, and our offense has the capability to put up big numbers if we don't make mistakes, and tonight we didn't make those mistakes."

Koch saw on tape that Columbus liked to spread out on defense, so he thought his quarterback could find daylight.

"When coach told me I was going to run a lot, I told him absolutely," Markwart said.

West Michigan put Columbus in a hole right from the start. Danielle Daughtry scored two touchdowns for the Mayhem in the first              John A. Lacko

quarter, one coming on a 1-yard run and the other on a 29-yard pass where she caught the ball in the middle of the field, split the defense and was gone.

After a MaryBeth McMillan 25-yard field goal put the Mayhem ahead, 17-0, in the second quarter, Columbus came back to score on Shelly Gates' 1-yard run for a 17-6 game. That marked just the second team all season that had been able to score on the Mayhem's tough defense.

McMillan made it 20-6 at halftime with a 23-yard field goal. West Michigan sealed the win with touchdowns from Liz Sowers (13-yard pass), Jennifer Plummer (1-yard run) and Raegan Radtke (1-yard run) in the second half.

Sowers also had two interceptions and deflected a pass late in the game that was picked off by Lisa Luedtke.

"We watched a lot of film and I knew what they were going to do," Sowers said. "Since I never played football, I just used my basketball ability (she played for Oakland University) to try and read the players and the pass."

Columbus coach Hank Patterson knew his team was in trouble when it couldn't run the ball. The Comets gained only 96 yards.

"Our main thing is to run the ball and try to keep teams from hurting us, and when we weren't successful at that, it was going to be bad for us," he said.