MARION — Even the football gods couldn’t stop it from happening.
Despite 11 penalties for 143 yards, four lost fumbles, a muffed punt, a lost onside kick and a constant rain that made the playing surface a slippery, muddy mess, the Shelby Whippets still prevailed with a 30-23 victory on Friday, Oct. 16, at Pleasant to clinch at least a share of the 2026 Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference football championship for the fourth consecutive year.
It is the first time in Shelby football’s storied history the Whippets have won four straight league titles and is the 32nd time they will bring home a conference trophy. Their conference win streak is now at 23 games.
“I am just really proud of our seniors,” Shelby coach Rob Mahaney said. “They have won four league titles in a row and handled their business. Has it been as pretty as we would have liked? No. But they came out tonight and found a way. They were very resilient and kept fighting. So proud of those seniors.”
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The Whippets (9-0, 6-0) took an early lead on a 48-yard run by Michael Shepherd. Pleasant (2-7, 1-5) responded with a long kickoff return before Weston Shaffer plowed his way in from three yards out to tie things up at 7-7. Shepherd added his second touchdown run from two yards out and again, Pleasant responded with a 37-yard field goal and a five-yard TD run from Shaffer to give the Spartans a 17-14 lead at the half. Shelby misplayed a punt early in the second half which turned into a 20-yard Shaffer TD run to make it 23-14 and it seemed everything that could go wrong, was.
After Luke Blevins added a six-yard touchdown run, the Whippets went from a 49-yard, go-ahead touchdown run to first-and-45 and an eventual punt after a series of penalties. A safety cut Pleasant’s lead to 23-22 early in the fourth quarter and the Whippets drove down the field before Pleasant forced another fumble and recovered to preserve the one-point lead. Shelby got the ball back again after a punt and turned it over on downs at midfield with 4:04 left in the game and again forced a punt with 3:03 remaining.
The punt was downed at the 6-yard line and the Whippets had to go 94 yards with one timeout to win the game.
“What we tried to do was go right at them,” Mahaney said. “Like last week, we lined up behind our five senior offensive linemen along with Max Miller at tight end. The backs ran extremely hard and we controlled the line of scrimmage in these conditions.
“We made plenty of mistakes. We did so many things to lose this game, with the penalties and turnovers, but the kids kept fighting through it all the way to the end. We could’ve played much cleaner football, but I am so proud of how the guys overcame.”
Before the final drive, senior quarterback Michael Shepherd called all of his teammates into the huddle and delivered a message.
“Shep called us in near the end of the game and really challenged us,” Shelby senior lineman Bryce Booker said. “We quit the stupid penalties and the personal fouls that killed us all night. We played our game in that final drive and showed who we really were.”
The drive ended with Luke Blevins plowing in from two yards out with 45 seconds remaining and scoring the two-point conversion.
“You have to give a lot of credit to our running backs, too,” Booker said. “We can make all the holes we want, but if we don’t have someone back there who is going to hit them, there is no point. Our running backs ran the ball extremely well and we all worked well together.”
The senior class is 23 players strong and they have never known what it was like to not win a league championship.
“It is so mind-blowing to me that we achieved something like that,” Shelby senior lineman Emmett Bates said. “It all started in June when we were doing our lifting and conditioning and grinding since then. It has been amazing to experience this.”
Blevins led the Whippets with 185 rushing yards on 17 carries and two touchdowns while Shepherd added 110 yards and two scores and Gavin Baker had 42 yards on the ground. Shelby ran for 335 yards on 37 carries and threw for 169 yards for 504 yards of total offense.
“It feels awesome and I feel honored to have the game in our hands,” Bates said. “We had to dominate the line of scrimmage so we could run the ball and we felt like we did our jobs. We went into our two-minute drill that we have been working on all year and we executed it perfectly. Our inside zone worked and we ran it over and over again.”
Defensively, the Whippets held Pleasant to 2 rushing yards on the game and 168 yards of total offense. Shelby dominated the stats in every category ― including penalties and turnovers.
“I wouldn’t disagree with that,” Mahaney said. “We would get behind our pads and play physical and then fumble. We would get momentum and then we look up and it is first-and-50. The weather, the penalties, the turnovers, we had so much against us, but they dug deep and made plays offensively and defensively.”
The Whippets join teams from 1927, 1933, 1938, 1940, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1952-54, 1956, 1959-1960, 1965, 1967-69, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1984, 1998, 2000, 2017, 2019-20, 2021 and 2023-25 to win league championships. They will look to cap off an undefeated MOAC season and a third straight 10-0 regular season at home against Marion Harding in Week 10.
“It shows a lot about our tradition,” Booker said. “In our program, we win.”
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Shelby football saves best for last, avoids upset to claim fourth straight MOAC title