Muskets look to break into win column

DALTON VITT/DAILY FORUM
North-West Nodaway senior tight end Jakob Cordell catches a pass from senior quarterback Koby Reynolds during the Muskets’ 88-70 loss to Rock Port Friday night.

North-West Nodaway has the fourth best scoring offense in 8-man football this year, averaging 59 points per game. But, despite that, the team is still searching for its first win of the season.

The Muskets dropped their season opener to Stanberry, the No. 2 team in the state, and lost last week in a high scoring affair, 88-70, to Rock Port.

While the offense hasn’t missed a step from last season, the defense has allowed an average of 84 points per game this season and North-West Nodaway head coach Andrew Webster said the team has to improve on the defensive side of the ball.

“We just need to work on tackling,” Webster said. “We need to work on special teams, too, because Rock Port had great field position all night Friday night. They were able to throw the ball on us all night and we didn’t expect that going in. We felt pretty comfortable, but they beat us on that.”

On Friday night, North-West Nodaway hosts the East Atchison Wolves, who defeated Mound City in the season opener but lost to Albany in decisive fashion last week.

The last time these two teams squared off, it was a defensive stalemate for the first three quarters until former Musket Trevor Meyer took over and scored three touchdowns in the final 12 minutes.

This time around, North-West Nodaway is without Meyer, but still has its four-year starter at the helm — Koby Reynolds.

“We’re really blessed on offense with Koby being our quarterback and he’s been our quarterback since his freshman year,” Webster said. “His brother was the quarterback before he got hurt and Koby’s been the quarterback ever since, so he has a lot of experience. Any team that has experience at that position should feel pretty good about its offense.”

Reynolds had a night for the record books last Friday in the loss against Rock Port. He racked up 10 total touchdowns including nine through the air and one on the ground.

Reynolds found junior all-purpose back Dakota Smyser on three separate occasions, but his favorite target was senior tight end Jakob Cordell, who caught six touchdown passes.

“Cordell is such a big guy,” Webster said. “He’s probably around 6’2” and 200 pounds and he can run. He’s usually matched up against a linebacker and we usually get a mismatch. We work on timing quite a bit, that way (Reynolds) can get the ball where it’s supposed to be and (Cordell) can go get it.”

With an offense capable of putting up electrifying numbers, Webster expects his squad to come out every week and be its best.

“(Cordell) is a good player and I expect those guys to play at a high level each and every week,” Webster said. “We have other players, too, like Dakota Smyser, who’s been playing well. But, we just expect them to play at that high level and when they do, they need to have success out there because we have a lot of experience. They have to be able to go out there and execute. Good things happen when you have good players.”

For three years prior to coming to North Nodaway to coach and teach, Webster spent three years at Tarkio. Webster has compiled a 2-2 record against Tarkio/East Atchison since becoming the head coach at North Nodaway and North-West Nodaway.

“I always want to win, so there’s a probably a little bit of that extra drive, I would say,” Webster said. “It’s interesting now because this year is the last year for any of the kids that I coached over at Tarkio. Brendon Bruns and Connor Shaw were in seventh grade my last year at Tarkio. I know some of the other ones, but I never coached them. It’s kind of the last year of that and there’s been that drive to beat these guys, but as time passed, it’s lessened each other, but there’s still that drive.”

Going against an East Atchison team that’s averaging 23 points per game on offense and allowing 47 points per game on defense, Webster said that it’s always difficult preparing for them.

“They’ve done some things against us in the past that no other team has done against us,” Webster said. “They play some man and zone over the top, when we go certain sets. It’s a little different for us than what we’re used to. In our league, you’re either going to see zone or you’re going to see man. We pass the ball a lot and they’re trying to take away that dimension. They really focus on taking our passing away with their coverage and you know they’re going to put guys over the top, along with manning up with us.

“East Atchison has a ball control offense. It’s very interesting how they do it. They’re really unbalanced. They will overload one side of the ball and play a numbers game putting a lot of guys at the point of attack. It’s interesting because on film, they’ll line up a bunch of guys to the right and then try to run the ball to the left. You have to respect their style, it’s a numbers game and they’re smart to do it.”

North-West Nodaway (0-2) takes on East Atchison (1-1) at 7 p.m. Friday night in Hopkins.