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By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
REEDS SPRING — In the week leading up to the game known as the Backyard Battle, the Hollister coaching staff tried its best to downplay what a victory would mean.
With perhaps their best chance to beat Reeds Spring for the first time in school history, the last thing the Tigers needed was to enter the game with too much adrenaline or hype.
But as time wound down in the fourth quarter and the clock finally ran out, there was absolutely nothing that anyone could do to suppress the emotions on the Hollister sideline.
At long last, Reeds Spring had fallen. And the trophy finally belonged to the Tigers.
Blake Russell ran for 250 yards and three touchdowns as Hollister snapped a streak of 14 consecutive losses to their archrivals with a 26-20 victory on Thursday at Carl Langley Field.
The Tigers had never won a game in the rivalry series that began in 2010, losing 13 times on the field and suffering a forfeit loss in the state tournament last year. Players and fans stormed the turf following the win, which came on the night Reeds Spring celebrated homecoming.
“Our kids are really excited,” Hollister coach Mike Johnson said. “It’s been a long time coming. When you lose to someone 13 times in a row and there’s a traveling trophy that has never traveled, it’s meant a lot to our kids. Quite honestly, we had to downplay it all week just to keep us focused and not get overamped. Our kids and our community are real excited about this.”
Perhaps none were more excited than Russell, who seemed determined to beat the Wolves singlehandedly. He scored on touchdown runs of 33, 38 and 3 yards in the second quarter and finished the first half with 174 yards on just 22 carries as the Tigers built an 18-6 halftime lead.
“I just wanted to beat them,” Russell said. “We’ve never beat them (in 14 tries) and I was wanting that trophy so bad because they’ve been talking about it constantly.”
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Russell entered the game averaging 250 yards per game from scrimmage, with 634 on the ground and another 368 through the air through the team’s first four games. When fellow back Zak Zahner went down with an injury after just one carry, they turned to Russell even more.
With the offensive line of Triston Cooner, AJ Narvaez, Isaac Evins, Boston Huck and Gabe Bean leading the way, Russell was unstoppable. The 5-foot-8 junior finished with 34 carries, added 21 receiving yards and had a 57-yard touchdown reception called back due to a penalty midway through the third quarter.
He expects to be ready to play next week after trainers tended to him on the field in the fourth quarter.
“He just doesn’t ever quit,” Johnson said. “He’s 145 pounds of ‘I’m going to be in your face all game and you’re going to have to deal with me.’ He starts and stops about as well as anybody you’ll see and he’s got a heart of gold.”
And a shoulder with a chip on it.
“I just want to show proof that I’m better than anybody in this conference,” Russell said. “I’m a really great running back.”
The win allowed Hollister (4-1, 2-0 Big 8 East) to move into a first-place tie with Aurora in the race for the conference championship — for at least a day. The Houn Dawgs (3-1, 2-0) have the chance to regain sole possession when they host Springfield Catholic (0-4, 0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday.
The Tigers also moved closer to securing the top seed in the Class 3 District 6 playoffs, which uses a complicated formula that weighs win-loss records, strength of schedule and score differential. They entered the game with a two-point edge over Aurora in the district standings and now hold head-to-head wins over Seneca and Reeds Spring, who were third and fourth.
The Tigers host Aurora next week with a chance to tighten their grip on both races even further.
But none of that mattered on Thursday night, with the long-awaited victory feeling like a title in itself. Players jumped around the trophy as if it were a district title plaque. If the Tigers keep playing as they’ve done in the first half of the season, one of those may be within reach.
“We’ve just been working this whole week and we’ve been grinding,” Russell said. “That’s what we’re going to do towards the end of the season. Keep grinding. Keep winning. We’re going to try to be the best team in Missouri.”
Just one more win would guarantee that Hollister’s season is the most successful since 2010. The Tigers won five games in 2017, but have not won more than four in any of the past 11 years.
“We’re in our second game of league play,” Johnson said. “We knew this was a very good opponent — a team that would be in contention for that conference title at the end of the year — and we want to be in that. It’s too early in the season to really tell where we’re at, but this was a big win for us.”
Reeds Spring got a 41-yard rushing touchdown from Jace Bolin in the first half, then chipped away at Hollister’s lead in the second. Evan Gross scored on a 52-yard run to cut the deficit to 18-14 with just over five minutes to play in the third quarter, but Hollister’s Luke Calovich connected with Zack Nuss for a 23-yard touchdown just over a minute later for a 12-point lead.
Reeds Spring cut that in half with 7:53 left in the fourth quarter, as Andrew Snyder scooped up a fumble and ran it back for a touchdown. But Hollister’s defense held the line as the offense stalled, and a key interception from Ayden Kimmel squashed the Wolves’ biggest threat.
Reeds Spring fell to 3-2 and 2-1 in conference play, but hasn’t been eliminated from title contention. And the top seed in the district bracket will be tough to capture, but a district title certainly is not off the table.
“Win or lose, one game can’t define your season,” Wolves coach Andy McFarland said. “We’ve got some things we have to get fixed. We can take a tough look at ourselves and fix those things or we can, you know, struggle mentally and let this thing kind of deflate our season and take down all of our future goals. Everything that we want to accomplish is still ahead of us and we can still accomplish every single one of those things.”
The only thing they can’t do is retain the possession of the trophy, which will travel for the first time in its history — and the Tigers hope it will be a sign of better things to come.
“I’m so excited,” Russell said. “I can’t wait. I’m just ready to play the next one and just keep playing. And I’m just glad we finally beat them. We’re just going to go up in the rankings and just keep going.”
Hollister (4-1, 2-0) 0 18 8 0 — 26
Reeds Spring (3-2, 2-1) 0 6 8 6 — 20
