Republic made a few mistakes at key early moments, and Sedalia Smith-Cotton capitalized to take a first-half lead on the way to a 42-14 win at home. Smith-Cotton led 21-o at halftime, and they had an answer every time Republic rallied to get back into the game. Noah Azierre and Dalton Zaremba led the way with two touchdowns apiece for the home team, overshadowing a strong performance from sophomore quarterback Riley Watkins, making his varsity debut for Republic.
Republic looked early on like they would be able to move the ball against Smith-Cotton, driving the ball deep into their territory on the second drive of the game. But a penalty and a bad snap snuffed out the drive, keeping the game scoreless.
The game remained 0-0 until 9:53 left in the second quarter, then Zaremba scored his first touchdown on a two-yard run. Four minutes later, Smith-Cotton took advantage of a second Republic miscue, after the Tigers snapped the ball over the head of quarterback Riley Watkins. Smith-Cotton recovered on the 11 yard line and punched it into the end zone on a one-yard run by Ricky Warren to make the score 14-0.
Republic again put together a sustained drive, but failed to finish and turned the ball over on downs on the Smith-Cotton 12 yard line. A couple of big plays later, Sedalia was deep in Republic territory. With eight seconds left, Azierre scored his first touchdown on a two-yard run to make it 21-0.
Republic came out fighting in the third quarter. The Tigers put together a 65-yard drive that ended with a 6-yard run by Jerney Jones to cut the lead to 21-7 with 5:21 left.
But Sedalia answered immediately. On the ensuing kickoff, Zaremba took a bobbled kickoff, ran through the defense 80 yards for a touchdown, and stretched the lead back to 28-7.
Republic made it 28-14 with 11:32 left in the 4th quarter on a four-yard run by Jones. That capped a 78-yard drive for the Tigers, and they followed it up with an onside kick that Jones recovered. But Republic couldn’t capitalize and again, Sedalia answered.
After Smith-Cotton forced a turnover on downs, Azierre sprinted 72 yards on the first play from scrimmage to give Smith-Cotton a 35-14 lead. A final touchdown on a 49-yard run by sophomore Zach Powell accounted for the final score.
The Yocum Automotive Drive of the game happened early in the second half, after Republic had fallen behind 21-0. The Tigers took the ball at their own 35 yard line and methodically marched down field, eating up chunks of yardage at a time. They capped the drive with a 6-yard run by Jerney Jones to close the gap to 21-7 and briefly seized momentum before Smith-Cotton put the game away in the 4th quarter.
Republic ended the game with 309 total yards, compared to 317 for Smith-Cotton. The Tigers were only 5-of-13 on third down conversions.
Despite the lopsided final, coach Wes Beachler says the Tigers were a couple of breaks from being in the game to the end.
“Football’s a pretty fickle game. On our first two or three possessions, we drove down the field well and didn’t finish drives,” he says. “I really think if we don’t have some bad situations arise and we finish those drives… it’s 7-0 Republic and we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves and it changes the entire game.”
Beachler says one takeaway from the opening loss is that the Tigers need to do a better job of handling adversity.
“I told them, ‘A team here eventually has to break the cycle, because as long as I’ve been here, and maybe going back to coach Thompson’s tenure, when we face adversity, we don’t respond very well,” he says. “You can coach it in practice, but if the kids don’t believe they can rise up on the next play, you’re going to continue to fight that battle. We had some kids rise up, we’ve just got to–as a unit, offense and defense–overcome sudden change, bad breaks, and keep playing football.
“We had our shots early to overcome adversity and get back in it, and we let something bad happen again. We can’t do that.”
One bright spot for Beachler was the play of Riley Watkins, making his first start as a sophomore in a hostile environment.
“I thought he played really well for a sophomore on the road. He has a lot of God-given ability and an outstanding work ethic,” Beachler says.
Watkins says he overcame early nerves as soon as the game started.
“At first I was a little jittery, but as soon as that first snap came, it was just playing football like I’ve been doing since third grade. Obviously it was a little different, but all in all, when I finally got used to it, it was just playing football,” Watkins says.
Watkins completed 8 of 15 passes for 100 yards through the air. He also rushed for 113 yards to lead the Tigers.
Jones rushed the ball 18 times for 60 yards. Skyler Owen had 20 yards on six carries, and also made two catches for 34 yards. Zach Dickens had two receptions for 30 yards for the Tigers.
Republic will be at home next week to host Marshfield. Both teams will be looking for their first win of the year. Game time is 7:00. We’ll have the live broadcast, starting with the Hines Street Pharmacy Pregame Show at 6:45.