After posting one of its best all-around halves of the season, the undermanned Madill Wildcats couldn’t hold off a strong Harrah squad down the stretch in a 62-21 Homecoming setback last week.
The Wildcats, who are steadily getting players back from injury, will try to carry that early momentum over into their final road tilt on Friday night when they visit powerhouse Blanchard.
“The whole first half was really good,” head coach Wade Couch said of the Homecoming battle. “It was a good evening overall. We are starting to see improvement offensively but not quite so much defensively. The kids are giving a lot of effort though.”
With Ryan Anderson returning from injury last week, the Madill offense found a bit of a spark and posted a pair of first half touchdowns through the air as Christian Smith came out hot.
One of the scoring tosses went to Alex Garcia while the other was a Landon Clutter catchintotheendzone.Smith also tallied a touchdown on the ground following intermission.
With the momentum heading into the halftime break, Madill was ready to receive the second half kickoff when the Panthers surprised everyone with an onside kick and recovered to start the third period.
Harrah scored a touchdown from there and steadily pulled away after that, tacking on a pair of late scoring passes to add to the scoring margin.
Smith finished the night nine of 14 through the air for 114 yards and the two scores, also adding 47 yards rushing on 17 totes and one touchdown. Clutter contributed 58 yards on 11 rushes.
Garcia had a terrific game in catching four passes for 62 yards with a pair of grabs by Clutter for nine yards. Justin Smith tallied one reception for 27 yards, Anderson had one catch for 15 and Brayden Gray caught one for a yard to go with his six yards on three rushing attempts.
“Alex Garcia had a great evening catching the ball and Christian threw well in the first half,” Couch said. “HavingRyanAndersonback from injury provided a spark for us. We plugged him in a handful of plays and he set uponetouchdownandalmost got another himself.
“We were only down by a touchdown at halftime and we thought if things had gone our way a couple of times we could have been up 21-14. After Harrah recovered the onsidekicktostartthesecond half it was really downhill and snowballed on us.”
While the numbers continue to improve with players returning from injury, as Anderson did, a few Wildcats are still trying to recover from concussion symptoms and maymissthefinaltwogames.
Blanchardwillprovideanother big challenge despite its 3-5 record on the season. The Lions were 35-13 winners over Harrah in the first district game of the campaign.
“They are awfully good,” Couch said of the Lions. “They are fast and spread you out. I think we’ll have some opportunities to do some things offensively. We just need to be more sound defensively and play with consistency.”
Madill lost to Harrah 62-21 on October 24.