By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The last time Webb City traveled to Carthage’s Haffner Stadium, the Cardinals left town with another district championship.
But Webb City had a rude awakening there on Friday night.
Fifth-ranked Carthage scored the first three touchdowns of the game and never relented en route to a dominant 42-14 win over second-ranked Webb City in a Central Ozark Conference showdown.
“I’m just so happy for these kids,” Carthage coach Jon Guidie said. “I told somebody in the beginning of the year if character means anything then this is going to be a pretty special year. The character of these kids is just unbelievable. Every day in practice they show up, they work, they want to learn, they want to be better. It paid off tonight.”
Carthage, 4-0, rushed for more than 400 yards in the game and handed Webb City, 2-2, its most lopsided loss since 2003. The 14 points scored were the fewest since a playoff loss to Ladue in 2018.
“It wasn’t a great week of practice, preparation-wise,” Webb City coach John Roderique said.
“Felt pretty good about ourselves last week and maybe our kids started thinking they were pretty good and found out tonight you better get to work every week,” he said.
It was all Carthage in the early going. The Tigers stopped Webb City on fourth down to open the game and then junior Luke Gall broke loose for a 67-yard touchdown to open the scoring.
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The Cardinals fumbled at their own 39 two plays later, leading to a 13-yard Gall touchdown.
And then Webb City fumbled again, this time on first down at its own 34. Barely a minute later, Gall punched it in from the 5-yard line and Carthage led 21-0 after Chris Mejia’s extra point.
Webb City finished the game with four turnovers.
“Getting them to turn the ball over is a feat in itself,” Guidie said. “They usually play very clean when they play us. Those turnovers were huge.”
The Cardinals couldn’t get within two scores the rest of the night. They made it 21-7 on a 45-yard run by quarterback Cohl Vaden, then managed to stop Carthage on fourth down in the red zone. The momentum was fleeting.
Webb City punted but got a break when Carthage was flagged for an illegal substitution. But on the ensuing first down, Tigers senior Sylas Browning intercepted a pass near midfield.
Carthage drove inside the 10 but fumbled in the final minute of the half or it might have been worse.
Senior quarterback Caden Kabance opened the third with an 83-yard touchdown run to make it 28-7.
Vaden answered with a 52-yard touchdown to get it back to 14, but the Cardinals couldn’t get anything going offensively the rest of the game. They punted on their other possession in the third quarter, but were gifted good field position in Carthage territory after senior Gavin Stowell picked off a pass on the first play of the fourth.
Webb City couldn’t move the chains, though, and a Vaden pass fell incomplete on a fourth-and-6 at the 39.
After Kabance added a 12-yard touchdown at the 7:26 mark, it was 35-14, and senior Cale Patrick intercepted a deflected pass at the 47 to help put the game away.
“The defense was fantastic,” Guidie said. “They do such a good job.”
Gall capped the scoring with a 2-yard run with 1:17 on the clock.
Carthage finished the game with 442 yards – 426 of them on the ground – while averaging nine yards per carry. The Tigers limited Webb City to 290 yards with 179 coming on the ground. Carthage had the advantage in first downs (19 to 11) and time of possession (28:42 to 19:12).
Gall led the team with 212 yards and four touchdowns on 21 carries, while Kabance added 209 yards and two scores on 25 attempts. Vaden rushed 12 times for 134 yards and two scores for Webb City.
“They were coming downhill very fast,” Roderique said of the Carthage defense. “It looked like they were beating us off the ball. We didn’t get off the ball very well. Gall, gosh dang, that kid played like an All-American tonight. They were more physical than us, bottom line. We didn’t have any answers. They were just coming down hill and we didn’t get in any kind of rhythm. Turned the ball over a couple times, kids get their heads down. Rough start.”
“Hopefully we’re not as bad a team as we played (like) tonight,” he said. “That momentum starts going and they were like sharks in the water … we got out-played, out-coached, shoot – out-everything tonight.”
“Just a great team win,” Guidie said. “Great effort. Proud of our kids, proud of our coaches. I’m hoping they enjoy this one and then get back to work in two days.”
