By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Cassville’s football team had its first winning season since 2020, but a 6-5 record last fall still wasn’t where the Wildcats wanted to be, according to head coach Clay Weldy.
“We played a lot of young kids and we had a few older kids who played that were first-year starters,” Weldy said. “Defensively, for most of the year we had just one person that was a starter the year before and on offense we had three. We were a very inexperienced team, but we bring back some more kids this year and hopefully that experience will pay off. One of the frustrations of our team last year was there were games we played really well and at times we were up and down and making silly, inexperienced mistakes.”
The Wildcats return 13 starters this fall, and Weldy said early indications from camp were Cassville could be more athletic than a year ago, and the Wildcats will be especially experienced at some key positions.
Offensively, Cassville returns quarterback Bodee Rose, a senior who will be a three-year starter, as well as senior running back Kyle Bailey, junior fullback Tristan Thompson, junior receivers Riley James and Colton Roark, junior linemen Ethan Sizemore and Isaac Luney, and also junior lineman Gunner Knight, who started three games before suffering an injury.
Rose passed for 340 yards and totaled 881 yards and 13 touchdowns on the ground, earning honorable mention honors in the Big 8 as an all-purpose back. Bailey rushed for 672 yards and five scores and earned honorable mention Big 8 honors as a running back. Thompson rushed for 97 yards and a score, and Roark had nine receptions for 185 yards and two scores.
Junior Tristan Antonio will see some time on the offensive line, with sophomores Ricky Norris, Jayce Magula and Harley Madison in the mix, as well as senior Isaac Pickett, who started on the defensive line last year.
Pickett (honorable mention Big 8 defensive tackle) is the only returner who started every game on defense for Cassville, but Sizemore also played a significant amount on the line. The Wildcats also return all four linebackers in senior Hunter Morse (two sacks, three fumble recoveries, 7.5 tackles for loss), Thompson (eight tackles for loss, honorable mention Big 8), Bailey (four tackles for loss) and sophomore Masin Bryan (two sacks, one interception, 5.5 tackles for loss). And Roark (two forced fumbles, one interception) and junior Riley James return in the secondary.
Defensive newcomers could include juniors Andon Goutney and Chance Freed, senior Kaedyn Garnett and sophomore Jaren Stearns in the secondary, and sophomore Easton Hughes and junior Sky Yang will also compete at linebacker.
Rose also earned honorable mention Big 8 honors as a punter, and Weldy said the team will be auditioning kickers after graduating two seniors who shared the duties last year.
The Wildcats kick off a tough schedule in the condensed Big 8 Conference at Seneca in week one, with home games against McDonald County, Lamar, Nevada and Monett, and a non-conference game at Harrisonville in late September. They’ll jamboree with Parkview, Willard and Bolivar.
“I’ve been at Cassville 17 years now and I think this will be the toughest schedule we’ve ever played,” Weldy said. “We don’t have a single week on our schedule that looks like a night you can roll in and be confident, it’s going to be tough every game. We’ve been preparing our kids for that, but that’s why we’re in the Big 8. We take pride in being in this conference, and it always has teams competing in December for state titles and we just think it makes us better.”
“We’re going to try to be the same Cassville Wildcat team we’ve always been: physical, play disciplined and play the right way,” he said. “We hope we’re a tough out this year.”
