There’s something about Maryville. And St. Pius X and head coach Rick Byers can’t seem to figure it out.
The Spoofhounds (2-0), ranked No. 3 in Class 3, used five second-half touchdowns to pull away from the host Warriors Friday night for a 56-7 victory, Maryville’s ninth straight win in the matchup dating back to 2010.
“We both wear Adidas uniforms, we’ve both got tech fit, just see how they fill their’s out and see how we fill ours out, there’s all you need to know,” Byers said. “They’ve got a good thing going right now. … We’ve got seven seniors and a bunch of babies, and we’re trying to figure out how to win a football game.”
The Spoofhounds took the opening kickoff and marched 78 yards down the field to take the only lead they would ever need, 7-0, on a 5-yard run by senior Dakota Beemer. That’s where the score remained until early in the second quarter.
“I thought out offense executed, I thought they played physical. We were able to go right down the field and execute the things we wanted to see in our game plan,” Maryville head coach Matt Webb said. “… Obviously a good start like that when we elected to receive is a good thing.”
After taking over on the Pius 25-yard line late in the first quarter, the Spoofhounds couldn’t gain any traction until junior quarterback Trey Oglesby hooked up with wide open junior running back John Zimmerman in the corner of the end zone on fourth-and-11 from the 26. Junior Jacob Reuter added the two-point conversion with less than a minute off the second-quarter clock.
Reuter dove over the top of the pile eight minutes later to increase the advantage to 21-0.
Then, on the final play of the half, the Warriors broke through. Sophomore quarterback Tommy Hoambrecker threaded a 40-yard pass between a pair of Spoofhounds to junior tight end Bobby McCoy to trim the lead to 21-7 at the break and give the home team some momentum going into the locker room.
“We’ve been playing them for several years, two times a year in the playoffs and in the regular season, and it was good to get a touchdown,” Byers said. “We’ve scored some field goals and some defensive touchdowns, but we haven’t ever scored on offense. That was a big one. It let the kids know they can do it if they get their minds right.”
Maryville quickly thwarted that momentum. The Warriors went three-and-out and the Spoofhounds’ offense found its stride on the ground.
“That touchdown, it made us think we were getting beat going into the second half,” Maryville senior defensive end Dustin Piper said. “It was a huge play for them. It made us harden down on our assignments.”
After Piper took his first career varsity carry 11 yards to pay dirt on the Hounds’ opening possession of the half, Beemer, who finished with 147 yards on nine carries, ripped off three straight touchdown runs — 17-, 12- and 57-yard jaunts, respectively.
“It was very big to get us to start rolling again,” Beemer said of Piper’s touchdown run. “Without that, we might not have scored as much as we did. (It was a) very big momentum change in our direction, for sure.”
Junior running back Bob Bruckner capped the scoring with a 6-yard run with just more than seven minutes to play.
“They just figured out they didn’t need to throw the ball,” Byers said. “We were covering the pass pretty well. I think they just figured out, ‘Hey, we can run the ball and have success.’ They just wore us down.”
St. Pius X (0-2) finds itself in a similar situation to last season, losing the first two games of the season to Odessa and Maryville. Last season, the Warriors then ripped off four straight wins, something Byers hopes his team can do again beginning next week when they host Nevada (0-2).
“We’ve just gotta change our attitude and make sure we fight to the end. That’s what we did last year, we learned how to fight a little bit,” Byers said. “Right now, we’ve got a bunch of sophomores playing that don’t really know how to fight and work hard. Working hard’s like anything else, you’ve gotta learn how to do it.”
Maryville, meanwhile, heads into the Midland Empire Conference portion of its season, taking on Chillicothe (2-0), chasing another perfect league mark.
“When you start conference play, you want to be the chased and not the chaser,” Webb said. “…There’s a rivalry that goes back a long time between Maryville and Chillicothe and this is the way to start off conference play. Our guys will be sky-high ready to go down there and start off conference play on a good note.”
