The last time the Mohawk Warrior football team claimed a Mid-Atlantic Conference championship was during the magical 2005 season. In a game 13 years later the Warriors made history on Friday Night.

The Mohawk Warriors were taking on the Ellwood City Wolverines with great aspirations on the line. The Warriors are seeking their second section championship in program history, but Ellwood City was looking to play spoiler and knock Mohawk out of first place. The first part of the game was a defensive slugfest, where neither team managed to score in the early going. It wasn’t until 1:21 left in the first half where quarterback Nick Wheeler hit wide receiver Dmitry Pendro on the slant pattern and Pendro shook free of a tackler and took it the rest of the way for a 63 yard touchdown to break the scoreless deadlock at 7-0 Mohawk. The score didn’t come until late in the third quarter as running back Braydon Cameron scored after capping off a long drive to put the Warriors up 14-0 with a little more than a quarter remaining. As Mohawk’s offense struggled to produce, only gaining 210 yards all game, its defense stood tall the entire game. It continually stonewalled the Ellwood City offense and gave them no breathing room for a potential comeback. Whenever it seemed Ellwood might be getting a spark, the Mohawk defense would rise to the occasion and wouldn’t give up anymore ground. When it was all over, after the teams exchanged good-games along the 50 yard line, the celebration was underway. After starting at the bottom of the section and not winning a game during the 2015-16 season, Mohawk slowly climbed its way up by winning a game the following season. They took a big step with last season’s effort that put them into the postseason for the first time since 2005, and now this year the Warriors finished in first place with a record of 7-1 in section play. Freedom finished the same record as Mohawk, but Mohawk has the head to head edge over Freedom to give them the section championship. The Warriors may be done with conference opponents, but they still have one final game in the regular season which they will use as a tune-up game before the playoffs start the following week. They will take on Summit Academy next Saturday with kickoff coming at 12:30.