MORAN — The Marmaton Valley Wildcats celebrated their second consecutive district title while completing their undefeated run in the Three Rivers League following Thursday’s 50-0 victory over the St. Paul Indians.
A whirlwind of touchdowns from senior quarterback Tyler Lord, as well as several successful onside kicks and three-and-out stops by the Marmaton Valley defense, brought Thursday’s contest to an end before halftime.
The Wildcats are now 7-1.
“Every time we step on the field we’re trying to prove we’re the best team out here,” Marmaton Valley coach Max Mickunas said. “We’re the best team on the field any given night and we’re the best team in Southeast Kansas. We’ve played the whole regular season now and if we haven’t made that statement I don’t know what will.”
After a bit of a hiccup on their opening possession, Lord put Marmaton Valley on the scoreboard with a 69-yard run. Lord rushed for nearly 200 yards and had four touchdowns while also completing 5 of 10 passes for 159 yards and two touchdowns.
“We’re just coming together. We’re all close off the field, and that helps tremendously when we’re on the field,” said Lord, who was also third in tackles with six and forced Marmaton Valley’s only turnover with a second quarter interception.
When not handling the ball himself, Lord’s primary target was senior receiver Todd Stevenson, who averaged more than 30 yards per reception with three catches for 106 yards and a touchdown.
Junior running back Cooper Scharff caught Lord’s other touchdown on a 49-yarder, but Scharff also kept St. Paul defenders from favoring the pass too much. On the ground, he averaged more than 8 yards per carry on six carries for 48 yards and a touchdown.
“Our line blocked well, and that allowed us to get our run game going and especially our passing game,” Scharff said. “Being aggressive and physical every single time is going to lead us to the win.”
Defensively, the Wildcats kept the Indians off the scoreboard with timely tackling. Ahead early, Marmaton Valley ran mostly from base formations, confidently pursuing Indian runners before they could make any significant gains. When St. Paul did challenge, there was always a Wildcat defender standing between the Indians and the goal line with multiple drives ending deep inside Marmaton Valley territory following a St. Paul turnover on downs.
“We started playing as a team,” said Brevyn Campbell, who had a team-leading 10 tackles and was second in solo tackles with four to Scharff’s five. “We’ve been facing adversity since before the season started. Everybody doubted us. This was a big game for us, and we weren’t going to lose to St. Paul.”
With Marmaton Valley scheduling their game ahead of Friday’s storms, the Wildcats will have to wait until the conclusion of Friday’s games to get a clearer outlook of the postseason bracket. Regardless, Coach Mickunas feels confident in his team moving forward, especially considering Marmaton Valley will more than likely host at least two postseason contests.
“Three league wins in a row, two district titles in a row, we feel good about that, but we have more to play for,” Mickunas said. “It wouldn’t be possible without our seniors and some of these older guys leading the way. These guys are a big part of this, obviously. We had a goal of shutting out everybody in the district but we gave up 6 points last week to Waverly. These guys took that personally, so we wanted to pitch a shutout tonight.”
