The Mehlville Senior High School football team tallied its second win of the season and its first in front of a home crowd, defeating Fox 12-6 Friday night.

The win was a much-needed morale builder for the 2-3 Panthers as they were coming off three straight losses since winning the season opener over Northwest in August.

Mehlville head coach Eric Meyer said it was a quick, hard-fought contest.

“It was a grind. It was a battle between two teams — a lot of running.” Meyer said. “It was a fast game. You turn around and you blink, then the game was over.”

Offensively, the rushing game has been a constant positive for the Panthers this season, though it hasn’t been enough to change the end result in Mehlville’s three previous contests.

Running back Brandon Zufall scored the game winning touchdown for Mehlville with 4:30 left in the game. He led the rushing attack with 87 yards in 19 rushes for an average of 4.6 yards per carry.

Dwayne Lewis, who scored the Panthers’ first touchdown of the game, was second in rushing yards with 41 in 11 attempts for an average of 3.7 yards per carry.

As a team, the Panthers rushed for 170 yards in 38 attempts for an average of 4.5 yards per carry.

Mehlville senior quarterback Zach White threw for 47 yards with four completions in 12 attempts.

The Panthers’ defense pulled its weight as well Friday, giving up just two field goals and putting up five sacks on the night against the 0-4 Fox Warriors.

“(The) defense played great tonight,” Meyer said. “They had a couple big plays, but defense really really played well. When we needed to, we shut them down … The de-fense just came through every time. They played a great game.”

Mehlville will be looking to climb back to the .500 plateau Friday night when they go on the road to face conference foe Marquette (2-3), which will be trying to do the same thing.

Offense will be the key to the outcome of the game, Meyer said.

“I think for us it’s got to happen up front.” he said. “Offensively, we are going the have to do a good job protecting the quarterback and trying to knock them off the ball a little bit.”