Falcons pull away from Spoofhounds in second half

JON DYKSTRA/THE FORUM
Maryville linebacker Will McCollough tackles Blair Oaks running back Hayden Lackman for a loss on Friday night at the Hound Pound.

MARYVILLE, Mo. — For the second time in a row, the Spoofhounds traded blows with defending Class 3 state champion Blair Oaks for over a half. Maryville had the game tied 14-14 in the third quarter on Friday at the Hound Pound.

Blair Oaks, who actually moved down to Class 2 this season, closed with 28 unanswered points in the second half for a 42-14 win in Maryville.

“We just blinked a little bit, and they didn’t blink,” Maryville junior Carson Hageman said.

The Spoofhounds opened the game with a 11-play, 64-yard touchdown drive. Junior quarterback Jackson Dredge jump-started the drive with first-down runs of 20 and seven yards. The team faced a fourth-and-10 from the 21 and Dredge hit Lucas Ziegler for a touchdown.

“We have the guys,” Maryville captain Cannon Scarbrough said of the line play which shined in the first half. “They are veterans now. We’ve played one game. They aren’t new anymore. They know what needs to be done, so now we can build throughout the season.”

Blair Oaks answered with a swing pass to utility player Brady Dapkus, a 2-time all-state selection, that Dapkus took 81 yards down the sideline for a score. The extra point put the Falcons up 7-6.

An interception gave Blair Oaks a short field and Maryville forced a fourth-and-6, but reigning Class 3 Offensive Player of the Year Tyler Bax hit Brenden Rackers for 10 yards and then found Cooper Peters for a 30-yard touchdown and a 14-6 lead.

Maryville answered back late in the second quarter with another 11-play drive, this one being 70 yards. The big play was a 40-yard Dredge-Ziegler connection and Weston Talley punched in a touchdown on fourth-and-goal to make it 14-12 deficit with 1:42 left in the half.

“A lot of teams would have folded,” Maryville coach Matt Webb said. “They would have said, ‘Boy, we started off good, but we are going to drop our heads and play this one out because we are playing the all-mighty Blair Oaks.’ … Our guys didn’t do that, we battled back.”

Blair Oaks took a shot to the end zone as time ticked away in the half, but Bax threw it up to a 1-on-1 matchup with 6’1 Dapkus on the much shorter Hageman. Hageman won the jump-ball in the end zone by ripping it away from Dapkus at the catch point. The interception kept it at 14-12 at half.

“I was backpedaling,” Hageman said. “I was right on him. He threw it up and the ball was in the air for about 30 seconds, it felt like. We both went up for it and I ended up coming down with it. It was an adrenaline rush like no other.”

The Falcons had the ball to open the half, but a Scarbrough sack helped force a punt. The punt never occurred. A high snap caused the punter to take a safety and the Spoofhounds knotted the game at 14-14.

“We just tried to focus on pass rushing to stop the quarterback before he could get the ball off,” Scarbrough said. “We were trying to take the line of scrimmage back and push it back as far as we could defensively.”

A bad snap the other way proved more costly for the Spoofhounds and Blair Oaks recovered the fumble with a short 25-yard field. Bax ran in a 6-yard touchdown for the lead.

Maryville was driving on the next possession, but a holding call followed by a sack forced a punt and Blair Oaks came down the field and added a Hayden Lackman touchdown.

Maryville was to midfield again on the next drive when Dredge scrambled for 17 yards, but was injured on the play. An interception before Dredge could return gave the Falcons another short field and Dapkus added his second score of the night.

A pick-six for Blair Oaks’ Shay Linhardt ended the scoring for the night with 8:47 left in the fourth quarter.

“You never want to start off 0-1, but this team has grit, it has character, it has courage and they they are going to fight right until the end,” Webb said. “And we are going to battle week in and week out. That is what you want to learn about your team in Week 1.”

Dredge threw for 83 yards with 61 of that going to Ziegler. Dredge also led the team in rushing with five carries for 49 yards.

“I know that kid and I know the character of him,” Webb said of Dredge. “He is going to live and learn from this. … Every mistake that was made tonight is fixable. You can fix the X’s and O’s stuff cause our kids are bought in and listening. You can’t fix heart, you can’t fix effort and you can’t fix courage with young people. We’ve got that. That was shown tonight and I am very proud. Jackson was one of the classic examples of that.”

Maryville is on the road this Friday at Class 4 Pleasant Hill. Pleasant Hill lost to Savannah on Friday 41-24 despite Savage quarterback Aiden Knechtenhofer injuring his leg on the first drive of the game.

“Have a one-game-at-a-time mentality and learn from this game,” Scarbrough said.