Parkersburg’s Tytan Parsons (11) hauls in a pass during Friday’s game against Musselman. (Photo by Brian Cox Photography)

PARKERSBURG — Jakel Shelton rushed for nearly 200 yards and Cooper Cancade had a pair of touchdown passes here Friday during senior night at Stadium Field as No. 16 Parkersburg ended its regular season with a 29-6 Class AAAA victory versus No. 13 Musselman.

Cancade, who attempted one pass after intermission and finished 5 of 9 for 73 yards, lofted a perfect aerial over a MHS defender to Zane Lewis to put the Big Reds ahead for good at 8:14 of the first, which capped an eight-play, 61-yard scoring drive.

The Applemen of head coach Brian Thomas, who picked up a forfeit win versus Martinsburg and will enter the postseason with a 3-7 record, then went on a march that nearly consumed the remainder of the first quarter.

Near midfield and facing a fourth-and-1, Zach Miller broke off a 15-yard gain as Cyrus Backus made a touchdown saving tackle. Nate Lasure, who led the visitors with 68 rushing yards on 18 attempts, raced 17 yards to get the visitors into the red zone.

After having it fourth-and-goal inside the 1, Taryn Boyles scored a touchdown, but it was called back due to an aiding the runner penalty. Miller, who hit 7 of 19 for 76 yards and was picked off by Javel Chandler late in the first half, had his attempted TD toss broken up by Conner Petty.

Parkersburg High School freshman Javel Chandler intercepts a pass during the Big Reds' 29-6 senior day victory Friday versus Musselman at Stadium Field. (Photo by Brian Cox Photography)

PHS proceeded to punt twice and MHS once before Chandler’s pick gave the hosts the pigskin at their own 25 with 1:19 showing on the clock.

Shelton, who went for game-highs of 20 carries and 196 yards, broke off a 28-yarder where he used a spin move and then a cutback. A 39-yard pass from Cancade to Tytan Parsons gave the red and white a first-and-goal at the 8, but Cancade was stripped as Joshua Armentrout recovered.

However, on the ensuing snap disaster struck for coach Thomas’ squad as Backus recovered a Demarion Warren fumble.

Now with the ball at the MHS 15, Cancade found tight end Braxton Kupfner all alone in the end zone on the first snap for a 14-0 halftime advantage as Quinton Wright’s second PAT was true.

“That offense is hard to simulate in practice,” admitted PHS third-year boss Matt Kimes, whose defense held the Applemen to 76 yards in the second half. “You don’t see it every week so trying to figure it out, you get your JV guys to try and run it. It doesn’t look like how the varsity team is going to run it obviously, so we bend but didn’t break in the first half.

“Made some adjustments in the second half. We thought we were going to be able to run the football (30-286). We’ve been able to run the football on most people this year. It was good to see that. I thought Jakel ran really hard. What a player. Other guys came in and facilitated the run game as well. Hats off to our offensive line. They blocked their a-es off.”

The visitors finally dented the scoreboard at 5:09 of the third when they took the opening series after intermission and found paydirt on the 12th play of a 63-yard drive. Miller hit Lasure for a 19-yard scoring strike, but the run for two failed.

Following a short kick by MHS, which Ethan Jones returned 13 yards across midfield to the 45, Shelton had runs of 14 and 5 yards to get the ball to the 26. One play later, Jones took a counter and housed it for a 22-6 cushion with 3:38 left in the third.

“It’s a counter, but we are wanting to sell outside zone the opposite way and it did hit a couple of times pretty good,” admitted Kimes, who watched Jones execute it twice with his first run going for 38 yards.

“I think I saw the Packers run it to be honest with you. It looks like outside zone one way and bring the counter back the other way. Stole it from them and it’s been pretty good to us. Obviously it worked pretty good tonight.”

Still trailing by two scores early in the fourth, Big Red Aeneas Lauderman had a strip-sack of Miller as Jones recovered at the Applemen 27. Lauderman scored four plays later from the 9 to set the final score.

“We’ve had a lot of success as a football program,” said coach Thomas. “We have high expectations as a football program. We’ve had a lot of years with a lot of wins and a lot of success. Unfortunately this year we’re struggling a little bit and we’re down a little bit. It’s been tough. I tip my hat to our kids. Our kids continue to fight and continue to come out. We came into week 11, last week of the season, and we didn’t have a single kid injured tonight.

“We’re at full health. Our kids show up and they fight everyday. They work hard. We didn’t play well tonight. Over the past month we’ve been kind of trajecting up and playing well and a lot better since the middle of the season, but tonight is the worst we’ve played. We had a lot of self-inflicted penalties. We just didn’t look like ourselves tonight. It’s frustrating, but our kids are fighting.”

Overall, coach Kimes was pleased, but realizes the Big Reds will have a difficult road test in the opening round of the postseason.

“We needed a game where we put four quarters of football together in every phase,” coach Kimes said. “I thought we did that. You had some breakdowns here and there, but for the most part we played a pretty clean game.

“When we do that, I’ve been telling these kids we can compete with anyone and now we are going to have to go repeat it next week no matter who our opponent ends up being. We’re going to have to repeat this performance and even amp it up a little bit more.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com