The season starts over for the Harrisonville Wildcats tomorrow night as they open district tournament play in Kansas City against Lincoln College Prep at Southeast High School. The Wildcats enter the game with a 2-7 mark on the season and have the No. 6 seed while Lincoln Prep is 6-3 and seeded No. 3.
“This will be the first time these two teams have met in quite some time, if ever, as far as I can recall,” HHS Coach Brent Maxwell said. “Despite our struggles this year, I do feel like our strength of schedule throughout the year and our postseason experience in the past will help us this week.”
What is the scouting report on Lincoln College Prep?
“Defensively, they play very hard and very aggressive. They are susceptible to giving up some big plays as a result of their style of play, but are more than capable of making some big plays as well.
“Lincoln looks to have some very athletic skill position players and some big lineman, which has obviously caused some problems for us this year,” Maxwell said. “They have a quick little running back that runs very hard out of their spread offense and their quarterback is a big young man.”
Maxwell noted that the big quarterback is fairly agile for his size and is a load to bring down when he runs the ball and he throws the ball pretty well.
“We will have to be very disciplined on defense and make a concentrated effort to wrap up while tackling,” Maxwell said.
The Wildcats closed out the regular season last Friday dropping a 49-18 decision at Odessa.
“We didn’t match up very well with Odessa as far as overall size goes,” Maxwell said. “They have several players on the offensive and defensive lines that played well and controlled the line of scrimmage most of the night.
“They were able to use a good mix of run and pass plays to keep our defense on its heels. We were able to minimize their big play opportunities for the most part, but they were able to find success in grinding out yards and extending drives.”
The Wildcats were able to muster some offense mainly through the passing game.
“Sophomore River Riley started his first game of the season and showed a lot of poise at times,” Maxwell said. “Despite a few mistakes leading to some turnovers, I felt like he handled the pressure fairly well overall.”
Riley completed 12-of-19 passes for 215 yards. He had three touchdown passes and one interception.
“He made some nice passes to Colby Knowles, Kennedy Atkinson and Josh Pesek out of the backfield,” the coach noted. “This allowed us to put some drives together and score three touchdowns. Our freshman running back, Jace Reynolds had some nice runs again tonight.”
Maxwell is a little concerned with his PAT (Point After Touchdown) unit, allowing two extra points to be blocked.
Statistically, freshman Jace Reynolds was the leading rusher with 10 carries for 41 yards while senior Jaydn Wilson had 16 yards on seven carries.
Junior wide receiver Colby Knowles was the leading receiver with four catches for 110 yards and one touchdown; sophomore wide receiver Kennedy Atkinson had three catches for 46 yards and running back Brice Percival, two for 29 yards and a touchdown.
The leading tackler for HHS was senior defensive back Brody Pitts with nine tackles and five assisted tackles; junior defensive back Carson Crowley with five tackles and two assisted tackles; sophomore defensive lineman Trevor Campbell with four tackles and two assisted tackles and junior defensive back Bravdon Tarwater with three tackles and six assisted tackles.
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