By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Webb City’s football team won 22 straight district titles before the streak was snapped last November. The Cardinals are hoping they started a new one on Friday night.
Top-seeded Webb City jumped out to a 27-0 lead in the first half and went on to roll third seed Carthage 42-7 in the Class 5 District 7 championship at Cardinal Stadium, setting up a quarterfinal matchup with Grain Valley next weekend.
“Man, I’m just proud of them,” Cardinals coach Ryan McFarland said. “We started our offseason program back on January 10 and this has been the goal since then. We set the tone of what we needed to do back in January and the kids have bought in and our 33 seniors have led us through every workout, every practice we’ve done. I can’t say enough about the senior class.”
“We kind of got steamrolled tonight for sure,” Carthage coach Jon Guidie said. “Big credit goes out to them. They played a heck of a game. Kids played hard. They took it to us tonight.”
Webb City, 9-2, avenged a 20-13 regular season loss to Carthage, which finished 7-5. The Cardinals scored touchdowns on four of their six possessions in the first half, while also missing a 31-yard field goal and throwing an interception.
That interception, by Cooper Lilienkamp, gave Carthage the ball at the Webb City 16-yard line less than two minutes into the game. But, in a sign of things to come, the Tigers were stymied for three plays before Webb City’s Brayden Ackerman intercepted a pass at the goal line.
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A 6-yard run by Omari Jackson and the extra point from Alex Dunne made it 7-0 with 2:11 left in the first. Jackson also scored on a 37-yard run, Andrew Elwell scored on a 2-yard plunge and quarterback Gabe Johnson scored on a 76-yard scamper to make it 27-0 before halftime.
“I was real nervous after that first interception,” McFarland said. “When you get the ball first you want to go down and score and the last thing we want to do is turn the ball over. Our defense was able to get a stop there. Offensively, that second drive we had three or four penalties, it seemed like on big plays that kept getting called back, but it really gave our guys confidence because they knew we had that big play potential, we just needed to cut back on mistakes.”
Carthage, meanwhile, turned it over on downs twice and punted twice in the first half. The Tigers’ final possession of the half saw them get as far as the Webb City 35 before a bad snap cost Carthage 16 yards. The drive ended with an interception by Andrew Young on the visitors’ sideline.
Any hope for a Tigers’ comeback dissipated in the third quarter. Carthage fumbled the kick return, giving the Cardinals the ball at the Carthage 18, and two plays later Elwell scored from the 4 and added a two-point run to make it 35-0 and start a running clock.
Then, after a Carthage punt, Webb City turned in a 79-yard scoring drive and a 6-yard touchdown from Braden McKee for a 42-0 lead.
The Tigers got on the scoreboard with 35 seconds remaining in the game when quarterback Brady Carlton scored from the 2.
“When we played them last time, for whatever reason they were more physical than us, they played with more energy than we did and that’s something we’ve talked about since that game,” McFarland said. “We can control our energy level, we can control how physical we are. For that night, for whatever reason, we weren’t and tonight we wanted to come out and set the tone early and I think we did that.”
Webb City totaled 454 rushing yards on 39 carries, an average of 11.6 per touch. Johnson rushed six times for 197 yards, Jackson had nine carries for 92 yards, Elwell had 14 rushes for 81 and McKee carried it four times for 45 yards.
Carthage finished with 157 yards of offense, with 126 yards coming on 31 carries. Carlton carried it 17 times for 57 yards and Landyn Collins gained 44 on 11.
“I’m very happy with the progress those kids made,” Guidie said. “It was a tough situation coming in, losing 11 starters on defense. It took us some time to adjust but they did and they came around. That’s a senior class that went 0-9 as freshmen so for those guys to hang in there – we only had 10 of them – but for them to hang in there and salvage a season after an 0-3 start and win seven games, I’m really proud of those guys.”
