MORAN — Marmaton Valley Junior High’s football team gave the scoreboard operator a good workout Thursday.
The Wildcats packed a season’s worth of scores into a single contest, defeating visiting St. Paul, 94-78, to open the 2022 campaign.
“The team faced some adversity this week and handled it well,” head coach Dan Uhlrich said. “We had a lot of positives from this game, like our downfield blocking, avoiding penalties, not having offensive turnovers and the enthusiasm the athletes displayed. We hope to continue displaying this enthusiasm and keep improving.”
Uhlrich lauded the play of Cooper Scharff, who ran in several touchdowns, lossed a long scoring strike to Kaden McVey and recovered a fumble. Chris McVey added a fumble recovery.
“The offensive line blocked very well,” Uhlrich said. “Dagen Barney, Mason Ferguson, Kaden McVey, Bella Sneed, Hunter Doolittle, Chris McVey and Brady Burton really did a nice job of blocking that led to many big scores.”
Barney added a two-point conversion on offense and a number of key sacks on defense.
Still, allowing 78 points shows there’s room for improvement, he continued.
“We will need to become more fundamental tacklers,” Uhlrich said. “We will continue to work on our conditioning.
“It was a very nice start to the year,” Uhlrich said.
Marmaton Valley travels to Yates Center next Thursday, which will offer a challenge, he said, “Yates Center does things much differently than most teams, so we will need to really focus on a short week.”
