The Pattonsburg football squad had been going through growing pains without Gage Iddings to anchor them on both sides of the ball. After losing 62-60 against Rock Port, they gave state-ranked South Holt all they wanted, leading them by 13 at one point. They were throwing in some new looks, developing a running game to go with their vaunted passing attack. But then Wyatt Maize went down in that game and the Knights, who had been there before, rallied in the closing seconds to break a 66-66 tie and win 73-66.
It looked like the season was going down the drain after the Princeton game. Two years before, Iddings had gone down and Pattonsburg had struggled without him; it looked like more of the same as the Panthers, without Maize, played a forgettable game and lost 66-28.
But on a night when everybody else was getting pounded into oblivion, Pattonsburg suddenly righted the ship and stunned Stanberry 58-22. Unlike most of their games, there was little suspense about this one. Despite many of the same players on the field for both sides, it was a completely different game than the lopsided game that Pattonsburg had lost to the Bulldogs last year. This year, Pattonsburg pulled away steadily, winning every quarter to get the win.
It started on the defensive end with Pattonsburg shutting down Stanberry, a vaunted running team. They held Stanberry to 119 yards, a 3.4 average, and nobody gained more than 30 yards. Stanberry tried seven different backs against them to no avail. The passing game was not much better, with the Bulldogs completing 5 of 17 passes for 104 yards. A relentless pass rush helped ground the Stanberry air attack as the Panthers had eight sacks. Collin Mason and Bryson Clark had 2 each and Camden Griffith, Landon Preston, Gavin Humphrey, and Jace Estrada all had 1.
Pattonsburg continued their pattern of diversifying their offense, running 21 times for 124 yards to keep defenses honest, getting a 5.9 average. They threw for another 259 yards, and Landon Preston added a punt return for a touchdown.
Camden Griffith completed 18 of 26 for 235 yards. Gage Fortner completed two of seven for 24 yards.
Camden Griffith rushed 9 times for 74 yards. Dalton Guy had 3 carries for 16 yards, and Landon Preston had 9 carries for 34 yards. They didn’t get more than 15 yards on any carry, but the high average meant that they could consistently get five yards a crack anytime they needed something on the ground.
Without Maize, Pattonsburg was able to turn to five different targets, including two freshmen, who stepped up when they had to. Drake Sperry had 3 catches for 19 yards. Landon Preston had 5 catches for 75 yards. Alex Young had 3 catches for 56 yards. Ryker Fortner had 2 catches for 24 yards. Gavin Humphrey had 6 catches for 94 yards.
Defensively, Jace Estrada has turned into a force on defense with his 300 pound frame and is anchoring the run defense. He had 12 tackles; his tackle numbers started going up steadily towards the end of last year. Landon Preston had 11, Camden Griffith 10, Gavin Humphrey 5, Bryson Clark 5, Collin Mason 4, Parker Virtue 3, Dalton Guy 2, Gage Fortner 2, Remington White 2, Patrick Hartman 1, Drake Sperry 1, and Alex Young 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment