Cohenn Stark was confident a gamble on fourth down would work. But when he took the snap, the Northwest High School junior quarterback and punter was surprised to see a different target.
With the Class 6 District 1 football semifinal at Seckman High on Nov. 7 tied 7-7 late in the fourth quarter, Stark was lined up to punt, but instead fired a 27-yard rope to senior Omarion Frazier. On the next play, Stark rumbled 35 yards for a touchdown with 4:53 left and sophomore kicker Cayden Richard made his second extra point to give the Lions a 14-7 lead.
The Jaguars, seeded second in the district, got to the edge of the red zone on their next drive, but just missed connecting on several pass plays, turned the ball over on downs and Northwest (No. 3) ran out the clock for a victory.
It’s the first district win for Northwest since 2010.
“We’ve been repping those plays for the past two weeks,” Stark said of the two successful fake punts the Lions ran. “We knew it was going to come down to winning those small battles like that and it executed tonight. (Frazier) isn’t supposed to run the route. He’s supposed to be the fake man, but he made an audible himself and ran that route and I saw him and connected.”
Northwest improved to 8-2 and is at top-seeded Jackson High (10-0) on Friday in the district championship game. The Indians crushed No. 4 Oakville High (8-3) 49-7 in the other District 1 semifinal.
It’s the first time in three years that Seckman (7-3) didn’t reach the district final. The Jaguars won the last five Suburban Conference Orange pool titles and will be moving up two rungs to the Red pool in 2026.
“We had some good execution early,” Seckman head coach Nick Baer said. “It was just one of those nights we got inside the red zone and it wasn’t meant to be. We let Northwest hang around and when you do that with a great player (Stark), you give them an opportunity.”
On the game’s first play from scrimmage, Stark fired a pass on a quick slant to tight end Adam Banks, who caught it and ran 60 yards for a TD to give the Lions a 7-0 lead with 11:38 left in the first quarter. Banks injured his shoulder being tackled in the end zone and didn’t return to the game. Baer said the defense wasn’t surprised by the call.
“No, we worked it all week. We worked it for two weeks,” Baer said.
“It was inches away from being intercepted, I just got it right over the linebacker and (Banks) took off and broke a couple of tackles and I’ve never seen him run that fast,” said Stark, who passed for more yards (144) than he rushed for (97).
Northwest head coach Scott Gerling said the Banks’ lightning bolt originated from film study of the 49-14 loss to Seckman in their Orange pool meeting in September.
“They’re so aggressive against the run,” Gerling said. “We snuck (Banks) behind them, he broke a couple of tackles, he’s not the fastest kid in the world, but he’s a physical kid and turning that into points was huge momentum and let our kids know they could compete.”
First-down runs by Chance Ruble, and a pass completion from QB Brody Kube to Cam Benson moved the Jaguars into Northwest territory on the next possession. But Lions defensive lineman Jacob Hartle had a tackle for a 6-yard loss and a Kube pass on fourth-and-11 was incomplete.
Seckman got the ball back immediately when Boyer Hart recovered a NW fumble at the Lion 32. The Jags cashed the turnover into seven points when Ruble scored on a 12-yard run and Ben Bajric made the PAT to tie the game 7-7 with 14 seconds left in the first.
Stark tricked Seckman with a pass to Chase Belcher on fourth down early in the second quarter, and completed a pass of 15 yards to Frazier to get closer to the red zone. All night the Jaguars pawed at Stark as he twisted and churned his way from their grasp to avoid negative plays. Stark has rushed for more than 1,300 yards this year.
“That’s Cohenn being Cohenn,” Gerling said. “We called an option play (on Stark’s rushing TD) and one of the (Lions) didn’t do what he was supposed to do and Cohenn couldn’t go where he wanted, so he just made a play in crunch time, which doesn’t surprise any of us. We know how physical he is running the ball. He’s coming along as a passer. His passes were on point except for the trick play thing. He’s a legitimate dual-threat QB.”
With the game tied 7-7, Seckman took the opening drive of the second half to inside the NW 10. But a holding penalty moved them back and Hartle swatted down a pass by Kube on fourth down.
“We had opportunities, we just didn’t take them,” Baer said. “There are a lot of plays in this game that we’ll look back on and want back.”
It was the fourth week in a row the Lions have held their opponents to 10 or fewer points.
“We challenged the defense to be better up front and if we do, we can compete with anybody, and that’s one of the reasons we had success against Fox, and certainly against Oakville,” Gerling said.