BY JARED PORTER
It was billed as one of the most highly anticipated prep football matchups in Southwest Missouri.
Webb City, however, quickly eliminated most of the night's suspense.
The Cardinals scored the game's first two touchdowns and led by as many as 28 points before settling for a 42-21 win over previously unbeaten Carthage in the Class 5 District 6 championship on Friday night at David Haffner Stadium.
The triumph secured a 21st consecutive district title for Webb City, which advances to the state quarterfinals to take on Lebanon, a 52-18 victor over Glendale, next Friday at Webb City. The Cardinals are seeking a second straight state championship after claiming the Class 4 title last season.
"I'm amazed at the kids' efforts, how hard they played," Webb City coach John Roderique said. "We had a fantastic week of practice. … One of the things we've found out is you don't really know a lot about yourselves sometimes when you play really good people. I remember talking to the coach from Nixa after that game (28-0 victory), I said, 'We haven't played that well all year.' I felt like playing that team brought out the best in us. And I had that feeling a little bit tonight."
Carthage, the defending Class 5 champion, was denied a seventh consecutive district title and saw its season come to a close with a 9-1 record. The loss also snapped the Tigers' 18-game winning streak that dated back to October of 2019. "The result tonight doesn't dictate who they are as people and who they're going to become as people," Carthage coach Jon Guidie said of his players after the game. "We're still very proud of them."
It was a contest defined by turnovers and opportunistic offense, and Webb City was the overwhelming beneficiary of both. In the first half, the Cardinals capitalized on a pair of Carthage turnovers and turned them into 14 points as they built a 28-7 halftime lead.
Perhaps Carthage's costliest turnover came in the latter stages of the first half when a Webb City punt was muffed on the return attempt and recovered by junior Cohl Vaden, giving the Cardinals the ball at the Carthage 43yard line with about two minutes to go until halftime.
Webb City scored two plays later on a 24-yard touchdown pass from senior Clay Gayman to senior wide receiver Mekhi Garrard, extending the Cardinals' lead to 21 points right before intermission.
Adding to Carthage's precarious situation at the game's midway point was the fact that Webb City would receive the second-half kickoff. And again, the Webb City offense did exactly what it wanted, going on an 80-yard, time-consuming drive that was capped by a 39-yard touchdown run by senior running back Devrin Weathers.
Carthage suddenly faced its biggest deficit of the season, 35-7, with 6:08 left in the third quarter.
"You try to control the game with your offense, and that's grinding it out and getting first downs.," Roderique said. "And I thought we did that tonight. The quarterback played well. Guys up front played well. I thought we had a good plan coming in, and the kids executed it pretty well."
Webb City finished with 349 yards of offense, with 246 coming in the run game and 103 via the pass.
From a yardage standpoint, the Carthage offense was similarly productive to Webb City with 340 yards. However, the Tigers only accounted for two offensive touchdowns — both in the fourth quarter — and punted or turned the ball over on five of seven drives. "Obviously we made some mistakes, and give (Webb City) credit for a lot of those," Guidie said. "A lot of mistakes by us, but you give them credit, too, because they force you into making those mistakes."
Carthage's first offensive score came with a little more than eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter when senior quarterback Patrick Carlton found the end zone on a five-yard run. The Cardinals responded in the very next series with Cohl Vaden reaching pay dirt on a nine-yard
carry before Carthage closed the scoring with an eight-yard touchdown pass from Carlton to sophomore Hudson Moore in the game's final minute.
Early in the game, Carthage took its first drive to near midfield before Webb City junior Cooper Crouch intercepted a pass and went 20 yards on the return. The takeaway set up the Cardinals' first score as Weathers found the end zone on a nine-yard run for a quick 7-0 lead.
Following a Carthage punt and another Webb City touchdown, this time on a short run by junior running back Dupree Jackson, Carthage senior Justin Sneed gave the Tigers some life on an 80-yard kickoff return for a touchdown that trimmed the Webb City advantage to 14-7.
The Cardinals then went on a 21-point surge to balloon the lead to 35-7 by the 6:08 mark of the third quarter.
For Webb City, Gayman converted four of seven passes for 103 yards and two touchdowns, and he also rushed for 55 yards on 12 attempts. Weathers was the team's leading rusher with 154 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries, while Vaden accounted for one receiving touchdown and one rushing touchdown.
Carlton paced the Carthage offense with 139 yards and one touchdown on 27 carries. He also threw for one touchdown and completed nine of 21 passes for 122 yards.
Vaden's fumble recovery ignites breakaway
BY JIM HENRY
After giving up touchdown drives to Webb City on its first three series, Carthage's defense finally forced a three-andout late in the first half.
The Tigers, trailing 21-7, called a timeout with less than three minutes left before the Cardinals punted from their 21-yard-line into the wind. The Tigers anticipated great field position with plenty of time to get a score and cut the deficit to seven points.
However, the wind knocked down the punt, and the Tigers fumbled a fair catch near the ground at about the 45-yard line. The elusive football squirted free about three times before Webb City's Cohl Vaden finally secured the recovery at the Carthage 43.
"I saw him drop it," said Vaden, who also scored two touchdowns on a 37-yard reception and nine-yard, fourth-down run on a reverse. "I was trailing behind, saw the first guy dive and (the ball) pops out. The second one, it popped out. The third one popped out, and then I was there. I think it was pretty big, a big turn."
"That was a big one obviously,"
Cardinals coach John Roderique said. "I didn't know if that ball was ever going to get picked up by anybody. I saw it bounce around and about 25 different guys touch it."
"It was huge," Carthage coach Jon Guidie said. "We worked on our punt return all week because we weren't happy with where we were at with it. We put two kids back to make sure we could field it and we still weren't able to do it. He tried to come up and make a play on it and missed it. Then we give up the big fade for a score there. That kind of broke us right there."
The Cardinals scored just two plays later, and again the wind played a factor.
From the Carthage 40, Cardinals quarterback Cole Gayman lofted a pass toward a covered Mekhi Garrard down the right side. The wind made the ball go higher, and Garrard made the adjustment as the defensive back went by. Garrard caught the ball, then moved back left to reach the end zone and give the Cardinals a 28-7 halftime lead en route to the 42-21 victory in the Class 5 District 6 championship game at David Haffner Stadium.
The Cardinal defense set the tone from the outset. Linebacker Cooper Crouch's interception and 20-yard return stopped Carthage's first drive and set up Devrin Weathers' 15-yard touchdown run, and the Tigers didn't have an offensive touchdown until the fourth quarter.
The Cardinals contained the Tigers' two 1,000-yard rushers. Quarterback Patrick Carlton netted 139 hard-earned yards on 27 carries, but he had only three runs of at least 10 yards, the longest a 16-yarder. Luke Gall was held to 32 yards on nine carries.
"We didn't give up the big play," Roderique said. "Carlton is so slippery. He's just so slick, and he's hard to tackle. And Gall is a really tough, fast kid. The receiver (Hudson Moore, six catches for 71 yards), he caught some balls that were unbelievable. They are a really talented team."
The victory gave the Cardinals (10-1) their 21st straight district championship and a quarterfinal game on Friday night at home against Lebanon.
"It's really big for our program," Vaden said. "We had a lot of hype coming into it, and we just love to continue. We love to play next week."
Carthage (9-1) saw its streaks of 18 victories and six district titles end.
"I'm proud of our boys, coming out and fighting the second half," Guidie said. "We moved the football, had three good drives. We came up short on the first one but scored on the other two. That is a credit to them. They are a resilient group. We dug ourselves too big of a hole at the end of the half and couldn't get out of it."
Joplin Globe 11/14/2020 (Used by permission)