Northwest defense to test efficient Ashland attack
JON DYKSTRA/DAILY FORUM
Northwest Missouri State coach Rich Wright celebrates with sophomore defensive tackle Zach Pierce against Missouri Southern earlier this season at Bearcat Stadium.
If we have learned anything from the Spoofhounds season so far, it is that in the end all that matters is getting to the postseason.
The Spoofhounds lost two games in the regular season and including one to the eventual top-seed in the district Chillicothe.
The Hounds didn’t hang their heads though and once the playoffs started, they won twice in a row to force a rematch with the Hornets, which Maryville won and now the Spoofhounds will play in the semifinals on Saturday.
To flip the page and look at the road the Bearcats, Northwest has also lost two games this season, including one to the top seed in the region Fort Hays State. In order to earn a rematch with the Tigers, the Bearcats must first win two games and that starts this week when they face off with Ashland.
Ashland is the No. 3 seed in the region while Northwest is the No. 6 seed. The Eagles have rolled to a 10-1 record and have won ten-straight games to win the Great Lakes Conference.
On offense, the Eagles are led by senior quarterback Travis Tarnowski (No. 16) who sets a new standard for efficiency with 26 touchdowns and just one interception all season. Tarnowski has throw for 2,600 yards on a 60 percent completion percentage.
“After watching him on film, he does a great job,” Wright said. “He gets rid of the ball fairly quickly and is decisive with his reads. He has a big arm and is mobile. He reminds me a lot of the kid from North Alabama last year.
“He is the guy that makes them go. Our job is to maybe make things a little faster for him to make things a little more difficult for him and challenge the timing of routes. That is where we kind of do what we do. There is some stuff that we saw that hopefully we can take advantage of.”
Matthew Wilcox is Tarnowski’s favorite target in the passing game. The senior has nearly twice as many receiving yards as the next closest Eagle with 37 catches for 707 yards and five touchdowns.
Without Anthony Lane, who is out with injury, that opens up the possibly for Wright shadow Wilcox with First-Team All-MIAA cornerback Marcus Jones.
“You can’t replace a guy like Anthony,” senior Edward Richey said. “That guy is a fierce competitor. If he could go out there right now, he’d say ‘forget the surgery,’ and he would suit up.”
In Lane’s stead, Richey has moved back to cornerback where he played last season and he and sophomore Najeem Hosein will be responsible for containing the rest of the Eagles passing targets.
“It speaks volumes about our depth,” Wright said of his team’s ability to overcome injuries.
The Eagles do have a 1,000-yard rusher in junior Andrew Vaughn, but he will have to go up against nation’s stingiest defense and a run defense that hasn’t allowed a single rushing touchdown all season.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Wright said of no rushing touchdowns. “As it started to go through the season I thought, ‘Wow, we might actually do this.’”
Wright has been happy with the entire defense.
“My favorite part of our defense this year is that we have done it without any true super stars,” Wright said. “It has really been a team effort. I’m proud of the way our kids have grown and developed.”
On offense, senior quarterback Jonathan Baker will get his second-straight start.
The offense performed well last week in a blowout win over Missouri Western, but beating the Griffons is a much simpler task than matching up with this Eagles squad.
The Bearcat backfield has been almost entirely new these past two weeks with running back Emanuel Jones returning from the injury he suffered in the opening week to join Baker in the backfield. The junior led the team in carries last week and scored a pair of touchdowns against the Griffons.
Even the special teams offers intrigue as Tarnowski is also the team’s punter.
“He punts from an offensive set,” Wright said. “It is really an offensive play and he has the liberty to check it. He has the green light back there.”
The Bearcats will likely be the premier game of the first week of the playoff, but Wright’s team is out to prove again that in Maryville, it takes more that a couple regular season bumps in the road to derail a chase for the championship.
“Every team is 0-0,” Richey said. “Everybody is playing for that one goal and those first 11 games don’t really mean anything. We have stepped into an entirely new season.”
The goal for Wright is even simpler.
“Our goal right now is to have Thanksgiving together,” Wright said. “If we are having Thanksgiving together, that means that we just won a playoff game.”
