By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
While the Neosho football team had homecoming festivities to attend to, visiting Nixa had more simple plans for Saturday night.
“We’re going to go eat us some pizza, drink a Gatorade and get out of here,” Nixa coach John Perry said.
Perry’s Eagles certainly earned it after a dominant 54-20 road win in Central Ozark Conference action. It didn’t all come easy, though.
Nixa, 4-1, actually trailed after a quarter of play against the winless Wildcats, but scored three touchdowns in the second quarter to pull away.
“I thought we made some mistakes defensively,” Perry said. “We gave up some things that we’ve still got to get better on. One thing we’re trying to stress with our team is let’s use every opportunity we have to get better. It doesn’t matter who you play, when the ball is snapped play as hard as you can play. There ain’t going to be playing up or playing down. I thought our kids played really hard tonight and hat’s off to them – they’ve scored probably 20 points in four of their five games. Their running back’s really good, they do a good job throwing it around. Their coach has done a really good job really quick. They’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future for sure.”
Neosho scored the first points of the game when sophomore quarterback Quenton Hughes swung the ball out to junior Jared Siler, who found running room down the home sideline for a 63-yard score.
Then Neosho junior Isaiah Green intercepted a pass, and soon the Wildcats were driving in Nixa territory with a chance to go up two touchdowns.
But Nixa’s defense held on a fourth down at the 37, and junior quarterback Connor Knatcal threw deep to sophomore Rylan Michel for a 49-yard touchdown to make it a 7-6 game.
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The Wildcats then drove as far as the Nixa 17-yard line before a pair of holding penalties forced them to punt.
Things changed in the second quarter.
Sophomore Spencer Ward scored on a 5-yard run to make it 13-7, then Nixa’s defense came up with another fourth down stop inside the 50. The Eagles followed with a 64-yard scoring drive that included a successful fake punt on a fourth-and-2, with senior Jaden Aven taking the snap while punter Kaleb James leapt wildly into the air and gaining 16 yards.
Knatcal threw to sophomore Jayden Antonelli for a 3-yard touchdown with 5:11 remaining to make it 20-7.
“That’s something we work on all the time,” Perry said of the fake punt. “To be honest we could have lined up on offense and went for it but those are some of our best players on the punt team. We snap it to Jaden Aven, a 235-pound stud, and we’ve got some of our better players in there. We had told them all week if it’s fourth down and one that’s what we’re going to do so we were ready for it.”
Nixa added a 6-yard touchdown on a pass from Knatcal to junior Kael Combs to lead 27-7 at the half.
“We wanted to play fast and we had a couple of bad breaks in the first quarter,” Perry said. “We just kept doing what we do and were able to get behind them on some quick touchdowns on a post, a fade here and there. We’re pretty explosive outside. Connor did a good job getting them the ball. We do have the ability to score pretty quick at times and we were going to chuck it around and see if we could do that.”
Neosho coach Brandon Taute said his staff has been preaching a fast start to his players.
“The first few weeks of the season we didn’t start fast and fell behind early,” he said. “So that’s been a big focus of ours. I’m super pleased with their effort right out of the gate. Nixa’s a really good football team and they didn’t shy away, we came out swinging. We just weren’t consistent enough.”
Knatcal threw a 29-yard touchdown to Michel at the 8:04 mark of the third to make it 34-7. Ward added a 3-yard run later in the third for a 41-7 lead.
It was 47-7 following another Ward touchdown, this one for 43 yards.
Neosho stopped the bleeding with a 25-yard score by Siler with 10:50 left in the game, but Nixa answered with a 4-yard run by senior Casen Hammitt. The Wildcats capped the scoring with an 80-yard touchdown reception by junior Brock Franklin.
Knatcal finished the game 14-of-23 passing for 255 yards, four touchdowns and an interception. Ward rushed 22 times for 128 yards and three touchdowns. Michel caught two passes for 78 yards and two scores.
Nixa finished with 479 yards of offense – 193 of those came in the second quarter.
Neosho finished the game with 428 yards offensively. The big story for the Wildcats was the play of Hughes, the sophomore quarterback making his first varsity start. He completed 33 of 55 attempts for 319 yards. Franklin led the team with 113 receiving yards, Siler added 80 and Green had 75. Siler also rushed for 103 yards.
“It was his first start ever and he played great,” Taute said of Hughes. “He looked like a veteran in there at times. Jared Siler had a great game. He’s been a great running back for us all year. We’re starting to catch some momentum, we’ve just got to be more consistent if we’re going to beat a team of Nixa’s caliber.”
