WARDSVILLE, Mo. - The best thing about Friday night's Jamboree for the Blair Oaks football team was that the Falcons got to face two opponents.
If it had been only one, Blair Oaks' takeaway from the night at the Falcon Athletic Complex might have been quite a bit different.
Under the format of the event, Blair Oaks got a limited number of offensive and defensive plays against its opponents, which were the Centralia Panthers and the Helias Crusaders.
Things were very forgettable as the Falcons dropped a 12-0 decision in the opener against Centralia. But the Falcons regrouped in time to end the night with a 6-all tie against Helias.
"The one thing that I wondered about with this team, because we've done a few of these combined scrimmages, is that we've always been slow starters," Blair Oaks coach Terry Walker said. "So coming into this evening, I was a little bit worried how we were going to respond.
"And everyone saw how we responded against Centralia - it was terrible, it was embarrassing. We've got to be better."
Centralia racked up 89 yards on 19 plays, with the lone highlight for Blair Oaks being an interception by Ethan Luebbering.
The Falcons mustered just 7 total yards on their 19 plays, losing a pair of fumbles in the process. With each possession starting at the other team's 40-yard line, the Falcons never got any deeper than the Panthers' 28.
"Against Centralia, I wasn't so disappointed in the fact that we didn't keep them out of the end zone or the fact that we didn't score touchdowns," Walker said. "I was just generally disappointed in the level of effort our kids were giving."
Things were decidedly better against Helias. While the Crusaders needed just seven plays to score a touchdown on their first possession, they netted just 4 yards on their final 10 plays.
The first time the Falcons got the ball, they needed just seven plays to cover the 40 yards to the end zone. Jake Van Ronzelen scored from 2 yards out, while a 17-yard pass from Jordan Hair to C.J. Closser was the big play of the drive.
Helias ended up with 17 plays for 39 yards, while Blair Oaks ran 24 plays and netted 103 yards.
"The real issue for me was just the level of effort and our willingness to compete," Walker said. "I thought that was lacking against Centralia, we improved against Helias and we're going to need a lot more improvement for next week against Moberly."
The Falcons open the regular season Friday at Moberly in a game that has been pushed back until 8 p.m. because of weather concerns.
"You can practice all you want, but at some point in time you've got to line up and start playing," Walker said. "We've had some really good practices, we've had some physical practices. What we have to do as a coaching staff and what the players have to do as players, is we have to transfer that from the practice field to the game field.
"They need to understand that the guy across from them isn't going to give them an inch and everything they get, they're going to have to earn."