Emily Norris is a junior at Mtn. Grove high school. Last year she watched as her beloved Panthers fell in the Class 3 quarterfinal round to Aurora 14-12.
“It was really rough, “ Norris recalls of the bitter loss to the Houn Dawgs. “My best friends cried and I was definitely in tears. But I was happy for him.”
Who’s him? That would be Aurora head coach Kale Kilgo, who just happens to be her uncle.
“I actually had a sign at that game that said ‘my daddy taught me not to talk to strangers…or Houn Dawg coaches.’ ”
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But Norris and her fellow Mtn. Grove fans got their sweet revenge in the 2016 season opener, as the Panthers took over in the second half to win 35-21.
Aurora, returning only three starters from their state semifinalist team, scored on their opening drive as one of those returnees, quarterback Payton Evans, engineered a 65-yard drive that consumed almost 10-minutes with a five-yard touchdown pass to Wyatt Neff putting the Dawgs up 7-0.
Mtn. Grove, though, had a pair of big kick-off returns to near midfield that set up both of its first-half touchdowns.
Trystan Short , a third-team all-state running back from last season, went over from five-yards-out for the first-of-three touchdowns to forge a 7-7 tie. Short would end up with 91 yards on 21 carries.
Aurora answered with another TD drive on its next possession with a four-yard pass from Evans to Preston Naylor making it 14-7. And with the ease of the Dawgs moving down the field, no one would have guessed that Aurora’s score at 6:59 of the second quarter would be their last touchdown until the fourth quarter.
Mtn. Grove tied it at 14 by the half when quarterback Carter Otwell went-wide and avoided a number of tacklers to go-in from four-yards out. Otwell carried 22-times for 159-yards and two touchdowns with an additional 45-yards in passing.
The decisive third quarter saw the Panthers score 14-unanswered points starting with a 10-yard run by Short and another short-touchdown burst that put Mtn. Grove ahead 28-14.
What was the difference?
“We went into halftime saying we needed to get back at these guys,” Short said after the game. “It was revenge more than anything. We made some adjustments. Really just blocking-schemes more than anything. We needed to get some outside containment so we could get outside.”
“Coach (Rich) Adkins (first year coach from Jasper) saw we were getting beat a little bit up-front and he talked us through some things to strengthen things up,” Otwell added. “Coach (Glen) Lemmon told our defense they had to start covering better because they were throwing short routes so we got that figured out. We started covering better and stopped the quarterback and that worked out for us.”
Having not scored since the 6:59 mark of the second quarter, Aurora did finally mount one-more-surge to make things interesting, pulling within 28-21 with 7:58 left in the game on a 13-yard connection between Evans and Logan Lauffer.
But the Grove then put the game-away with an 80-yard, 11-play drive with Otwell carrying for the final 20-yards to secure the 35-21 victory and sweet revenge for the Panthers and their fans.
“It feels great,” Otwell said of the victory. “They lost a lot of players but they beat us in the playoffs and that’s as far (in the post-season) as we’d been in a while. So we wanted revenge and we got it.”
For Norris the sweet revenge might be a little dicey as her after-game plans included going over to her uncle’s house after he had suffered a bitter defeat.
“We’re gonna have pizza and ice cream so he can’t be upset,” Norris said with a smile.
And when asked if she’d add to his discomfort by rubbing-in the Mtn. Grove win?
“Maybe a little,” she laughed. “But we’ll keep it nice.”
She should give Kilgo a break. Because next week his Houn Dawgs have to play an always-tough Mtn. View/Liberty team with perennial powerhouse Lamar after that.
Mtn. Grove, now ranked 7th in the state in Class 2, plays its first home game next week against Strafford.
