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By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
As a victorious Lockwood football team gathered in the postgame huddle, one player found the right words to describe what had just unfolded.
“We survived it,” he said.
“It definitely felt that way at the end,” Tigers coach Clay Lasater said minutes later.
While Lockwood held a three-touchdown lead for most of the third quarter, it took a defensive stand in Tiger territory in the final minutes of the game to seal a 35-28 win in the Class 1 District 4 semifinals Friday night.
“It was just such a battle,” Lasater said. “Super proud of the kids. We knew it was going to be a full four quarter battle the whole time and we were just going to have to fight for every little bit and they did that.
Lockwood, 9-1, entered Friday night averaging 47 points per game and had won its last six games by an average of 46 points. But with the team’s varsity lineup seeing limited minutes in that span – a quarter or a quarter-and-a-half each week – Lasater was worried how the Tigers would hold up if they had to stay on the field for four quarters in a tight game against Cabool.
“Maybe that wouldn’t be something we’d be prepared for,” he said.
But in the third quarter it appeared those fears might be all for naught.
Lockwood, already leading 21-6, recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff and scored three plays later when senior quarterback Max Schnelle scored on an 11-yard run. The Tigers led 28-6 with 10:40 left in the third.
And Cabool’s offense hadn’t done much to that point. The team’s first five possessions lasted three plays or less and included three punts and a fumble.
But with their backs to the wall, the Bulldogs answered with an 80 yard, 17-play scoring drive that included three third-down conversions and another on fourth down. By the time it ended in a 19-yard scramble by backup quarterback Payton Byerly, more than eight minutes had elapsed.
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Junior Eddie Swisloski, the team’s kicker and an offensive tackle, added a two-point conversion on the ground and Cabool was back in the game.
Lockwood punted on its next possession and then fumbled after intercepting a Cabool pass. The Bulldogs then mounted a 60-yard scoring drive midway through the fourth quarter. Senior Daniel Hutcheson’s 13-yard run and Swisloski’s extra point made it 28-21 with 6:06 left in the game.
The Tigers responded with a 47-yard touchdown on the first play of their ensuing possession, with senior Jamie Kramer hauling in a short pass and running past the defense to make it 35-21.
Then came another Cabool turnover, an interception by Lockwood senior Dylan Gallup in the end zone. With just four minutes remaining it looked like the Tigers had it all but locked up.
Except that Lockwood was forced to go three and out and Cabool senior Dakota Schwenk returned the punt for a touchdown to pull within 35-28 with 2:17 left in the game.
And then the Bulldogs – as they had done all night – attempted an onside kick. The ball glanced off the fingertips of a Lockwood player and bounced deeper into Tiger territory. In a mad scramble for the ball, Cabool recovered it at the Lockwood 35.
The Bulldogs faced a fourth-and-2 but were backed up on a false start penalty. Byerly couldn’t handle the snap and Lockwood junior Landon Stump recovered the ball near midfield.
Lockwood finally could rest easy.
“They are so good at getting onside kicks that it just felt like as soon as they scored they were going to be able to get another shot so it just didn’t feel like we had enough,” Lasater said. “It felt like we were just hanging on there.”
Cabool recovered an onside kick on the first play of the game but couldn’t turn it into points. Lockwood struck on its first offensive snap when Kramer took a reception 80 yards for a touchdown. Cabool answered with an 80-yard score on its next offensive play – a run by junior Braxton Davis.
Lockwood pulled ahead on a 20-yard touchdown pass from Schnelle to senior Lane Dunlap with 3:55 left in the first half and the pair connected for a 50-yard score in the final minute to make it 21-6.
The Tigers drove as far as the Cabool 6 on another first-half possession but failed to score. The drive included eight Lockwood penalties, six of them false starts, and ended in a missed field goal.
“I just felt like we were constantly shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties in the first half and then the second half was giving up onside kicks,” Lasater said. “A lot of things went a way we were afraid of going and if those things happened we didn’t know if we could win. We had to just gut it out even though we had to overcome a lot of adversity with penalties and onside kicks.”
“We started playing our game,” Cabool coach Tyler Spittler said of the second-half surge. “We started completing some stuff and getting some stops. We were super close the whole game with stuff breaking whether that be on defense us getting a big stop and just missing or dropping a ball or missing an open receiver, not throwing it in time. We missed some stuff early and once we got some success that stuff started going our way.”
The Bulldogs were forced to play the second half without starting quarterback Quincy Flanagan, a senior who suffered a leg injury just before halftime.
Lockwood, the second seed in the district, will travel to top-seeded Marionville in the finals next week. The Comets handed Lockwood its only loss – 35-20 in September. Marionville defeated Pierce City 34-0 on Friday.
Cabool finishes with a 6-5 record, the school’s first winning season since 2007.
“This senior class, I can’t say enough good things about them,” Spittler said. “They’ve turned the program around. This is only my second year here so I don’t know as much of the history but I would guess this has probably been the most successful senior class, I know for sure in 10 years but maybe even 20 or so. They’ve won a lot of games.”
