Thunder roll past Panthers

KEN GARNER/THE FORUM
Nodaway Valley senior Lane Larabee throws a pass on Friday night in Burlington Junction against Mound City.

BURLINGTON JCT., Mo. —Nearly every coach worries about his team’s focus during Homecoming Week. For Nodaway Valley that was the message all week leading up to Friday night’s game.

Alan Calfee’s message was received loud and clear as his No. 2 ranked Thunder rolled past Mound City 56-6 in Burlington Junction to remain perfect on the season (5-0).

“I talked to the kids earlier (this week) with it being Homecoming, there can be a lot of distractions and my biggest thing was to stay focused on the game, because ultimately that’s what they’re going to remember,” he said. “We did a good job of coming out focused and doing what we needed to do. I thought we played fundamentally sound physical football.”

Nodaway Valley played that sound fundamental football most of the night dominating both sides of the ball. The play of the offensive line allowed senior quarterback Lane Larabee to distribute the ball equally on the ground and through the air.

After winning the toss, Nodaway Valley drove down the field quickly which led to a 7-yard touchdown run by sophomore running back Tye Hoyt. The 2-point conversion was added on with a direct snap to fullback Preston Jenkins.

The Thunder defense quickly forced Mound City in its opening drive to go four and out with a turnover on downs on and took over on the Panthers’ 29-yard line. Larabee immediately found freshman receiver Jax Cowden for a 29-yard touchdown reception to make the score 14-0.

Larabee said the Homecoming crowd and atmosphere gave the team some excitement as well as helping them focus.

“Everyone was here to watch us and everyone was pumped up and ready to go,” he said. “We came out on that first drive and scored and it just gave us momentum on defense to go get the stop and go back down again and score.”

That would be turn out to be the theme of the night a Thunder score followed by suffocating defense leading to more scores.

Mound City attempted to answer and crossed midfield after getting its initial first down of the game, but the Thunder forced a turnover as Dakota Patterson intercepted a fourth-down pass and had a long return to the Panther 37-yard line.

Jenkins took a handoff and rumbled down to the 5-yard line and the Nodaway-Holt Homecoming King would later punch it in for a 3-yard touchdown run.

After forcing another Panther turnover on downs, Nodaway Valley went right back to work. Larabee found his favorite target of the night Cowden for a 30-yard pass and catch down to the 10-yard line. Larabee would call his own number on an outside run for the 10-yard touchdown with 6.2 seconds left in the opening quarter, followed by a Cowden 2-point PAT reception.

Following a Thunder sack on third down, Mound City was forced to punt. Nodaway Valley reached into its bag of tricks and with a 45-yard halfback pass. A Panther pass interference call in the end zone set Nodaway Valley up at the 2-yard line and Larabee found the end zone using his legs to make the score 34-0.

Mound City followed up with its best drive of the night reaching as far as the Thunder 28-yard line. Nodaway Valley’s line stood strong and forced the Panthers to turn the ball over on downs and gave the ball back to Larabee and the offense at its own 33-yard line with 1:19 remaining in the half.

Larabee found Jenkins and Cowden for receptions to get the Thunder down to the Mound City 19-yard line. Hoyt took a handoff and found the end zone with 43.9 seconds left followed by a 2-point conversion to extend the lead to 42-0 with less than 45 seconds left in the half.

With a big lead and running clock after halftime, Nodaway Valley took the opportunity to get other players meaningful minutes on the field as Brody McGinness scored two second half touchdowns, with coming on a handoff and the other on a scoring catch on a pass from quarterback Skyler Randall.

Mound City was able to get on the scoreboard following six straight plays where they fumbled the ball including on its lone score when the ball was fumbled twice on the same play but was picked up by a Panther for a 66-yard touchdown run.

Calfee was pleased with the play of his team following the dominant victory and credited his offensive and defensive line with being able to spread the ball around in the run and pass games.

“We talk about that with our lineman,” he said. “At any level of football how your line plays dictates a lot. We ask them to set the tone with their physicality and make sure they play smart assignment football and if they do that it makes it easier.”

For the game, Larabee had 172 passing yards including a touchdown pass and two rushing touchdowns. Cowden was often on the other end of those passes with 114 receiving yards.

Although excited about the Homecoming win, this coming week’s game on the road at Rock Port has all of the Thunder’s attention and focus.

“We just have to clean up the little things and be smart and disciplined going into Rock Port,” Calfee said. “The team that is most fundamentally sound, has physicality and takes care of the football (will win).”

The game in Rock Port is a battle of top-10 ranked and undefeated 8-man football teams. With both teams being undefeated it may ultimately determine the winner of the 275 Conference and have district seeding implications.

“It was a good win and we just need to keep fighting for next week,” Cowden said. “We just go to keep trucking and have a good week of practice and that will make the difference.”