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By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
SPRINGFIELD – It had been three years since any high school football player competed in the Grin Iron Classic, but one of Springfield Catholic’s coaches made sure to remind Liam O’Reilly that a Fightin’ Irish standout was named the offense’s most valuable player back in 2019.
“I had to try to do the same,” O’Reilly said.
Well, mission accomplished.
O’Reilly and fellow Missouri State commit Dagen Kenslow each scored touchdowns to lead the East to a 28-2 victory over the West in the 21st annual installment of the senior all-star game on Friday night at Glendale High School.
O’Reilly caught six passes for 64 yards – including a 28-yard touchdown – to earn offensive MVP honors. Former Catholic standout Tyson Riley won the same award in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the games in 2020 and 2021.
For O’Reilly, who estimated he’d attended five to 10 previous Grin Iron Classics, being named the MVP of the game he grew up watching was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“It’s a good feeling,” O’Reilly said. “I’m happy to bring another one back to Catholic.”
Parkview’s Carl Thomas, who will continue his football career at Quincy University in Illinois, was named the defensive MVP after anchoring a defense that held a shutout until the final 10 seconds of the game, when a botched run resulted in a safety.
But that hardly put a damper on the final high school game of his career, in which he and his new teammates held the West to just 88 total yards of offense – 35 of which came on one play.
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“It feels great to get to go out with a win,” Thomas said. “Get to play with some of the dudes I’ve competed with the past few years. It’s just a great experience.”
The rosters featured a unique mixture of players like Thomas, O’Reilly and Kenslow – who will all be playing college football – and others who had highly successful high school careers, but were likely playing competitive football for the last time.
“There were some people talking about not going on,” Kenslow said. “There were some people talking about going on. But in the end, we were talking about coming out here and just competing and coming out on top.”
The East set the tone early, racing out to a 14-0 lead less than five minutes after the opening kickoff and adding two more touchdowns just before halftime.
Kenslow, a West Plains standout who committed to Missouri State earlier this week, opened the scoring with a 9-yard touchdown run three minutes into the first quarter.
Thayer’s Jackson Willison scored on a 4-yard scamper less than two minutes later, and Fair Grove’s Kody Stacye connected with O’Reilly for a two-point conversion to make it 14-0.
That score held for more than 17 minutes, but Liberty’s Tyler Watts found O’Reilly for a touchdown with 1:47 remaining in the second quarter. West Plains standout Connor Lair, another Missouri State commit, converted a two-point conversion for a 22-0 lead.
Future Bears accounted for 16 of the East’s 28 points.
“Guys like Dagen and Liam and Connor that are going to play at Missouri State, that’s great for them,” said Parkview coach Ben Dougherty, who led the East. “It’s great that we’ll get to see that local talent still play here for the Bears, but I really enjoyed coaching these guys this week. I thought that every single one of them showed tonight why they were on this team. I felt like every single person we had on this team, at one point or another, made a big play.”
The East’s defense forced a three-and-out after O’Reilly’s score and Stacye, who will play at MidAmerica Nazarene, added a 23-yard rushing touchdown 19.5 seconds before halftime.
The teams played to a defensive stalemate in the second half, with neither side able to score a touchdown. The West twice got the ball within the 12-yard line, but the East defense held.
“These guys are all competitors,” Dougherty said. “That’s why they’re at the level that they were at. It’s just that pride and wanting to go compete for one last win.”
For players who aren’t going to play the sport in college, that victory carries added significance.
“It’s low-key kind of surreal, because you don’t really think about it that much,” said Willison, who will attend Missouri State-West Plains on a cheerleading scholarship. “But after you get it all done, you’re kind of like ‘Wow, that’s it.’”
Results aside, Dougherty was happy that the Class of 2022 had the opportunity to play one final game after the pandemic ripped the opportunity away from the previous two graduating classes.
“I remember when I was growing up, this was an experience,” Dougherty said. “This was a big deal. To be able to come out and coach in this game was a huge honor. I’m really glad to be able to help lead the East team to a win. It was a lot of fun. I know a lot of people were excited to have the game back.”
Including quite a few on his sideline.
“That was the funnest football game I’ve played all year,” Willison said.
