Lamar avenges 2018 loss with 14-10 win over Cassville

img_6760-5

By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)

LAMAR, Mo. – It’s been a year since Cassville ended Lamar’s 57-game winning streak with a 37-yard field goal as time expired.

Lamar hasn’t forgotten.

The Tigers made a defensive stand in the red zone and then ran out the clock on Friday night as Class 2 No. 7 Lamar beat Class 3 No. 9 Cassville 14-10 in Big 8 Conference action.

“Me, our players, everyone in our program have been living with that game from a year ago where we thought we played pretty well in the first half and didn’t in the second,” Lamar coach Scott Bailey said.

“They were more physical than us,” he said. “That’s hard to live with for a year and at halftime I told them, ‘You know we’re in pretty much the exact same position we were a year ago. You’ve got a chance to redeem ourselves, you’ve got a chance to make things right over what happened last year.”

The Tigers responded by shutting out Cassville in the second half. The go-ahead score came after Lamar recovered a fumble at the Cassville 21-yard line late in the third quarter. Five plays later junior Case Tucker scored from the 11 to make it 14-10 with 11:55 left in the game.

Cassville then mounted a 13-play drive lasting nearly seven minutes. Quarterback Deven Bates, a senior, passed to senior DJ White for 10 yards on a third-and-8 and junior running back Jericho Farris gained four yards on a third-and-1 to keep the chains moving.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME

Things stalled in the red zone. Cassville was stopped for no gain on a third-and-4 and Bates threw incomplete under pressure on fourth down.

Just five minutes remained on the scoreboard and the Wildcats never touched the ball again.

“It’s a typical physical Big 8 football game,” Cassville coach Lance Parnell said. “Two good football teams out there. Really proud of our kids and the effort they played with and fight they showed. They showed a lot of guts down 14-10 to drive the ball down inside Lamar’s 20 late. Gave ourselves an opportunity we just came up a little short tonight.”

Lamar, which ends the regular season 7-2, had to overcome itself at times on Friday. After a 77-yard scoring drive on the Tigers’ first possession in the game – freshman Austin Wilkerson scored on an 11-yard run – Lamar came up empty on its next four possessions.

That included a punt and two missed field goals in the first half after driving to the Cassville 16 and 9.

The Wildcats tied it on a 33-yard reception by senior Bowen Preddy with 3:37 left in the first quarter and then took the lead with 5.9 seconds remaining in the first half on a 36-yard field goal by junior Drake Reese.

It was Reese who booted the game-winning field goal last year.

Lamar’s offensive misfortune continued on its first possession of the second half. Junior Cade Smith rushed for 31 yards and Wilkerson rushed for 26, but on a first-and-goal at the 1 Cassville’s Preddy recovered a fumbled snap.

The Wildcats returned the favor later in the quarter, fumbling at their own 21 to set up Lamar’s go-ahead score. The Tigers were flagged twice on that possession, once for a false start and later for aiding a runner. On a fourth-and-short Tucker powered his way into the end zone from the 11.

“We knew that we were causing our offense to stall,” Bailey said. “We knew our defense was playing really well also. Sometimes in the past when you’re dealing with a high school age kid that can deject them but there was just a huge push tonight to overcome whatever happened whether Cassville was causing it to happen to us like they did a year ago or we were causing it to happen to us like sometimes we did tonight.”

The history between Lamar and Cassville goes back further than just last year.

“When we started our football program Cassville was at the top of our conference, they were at the top of the state in Class 3 when we were trying to build this thing,” Bailey said. “Coach Large and coach Parnell helped me a ton and a lot of the stuff that we do with our football program year round we got from them. We learned it from them and that’s how we built what we got here. When Lamar and Cassville play, you go ask the referees, there’s no words exchanged, there’s people helping kids up off the ground, there’s people getting hit. It’s physical and there’s people fighting for extra yards. It’s two run teams trying to control the line of scrimmage. There’s a ton of respect between these two programs and for me that means a lot that there’s that much respect between our two coaching staffs and our players.”

He said the game wasn’t a grudge match but a “respect match.”

“I agree with him wholeheartedly,” Parnell said.

Related Posts

Loading...