The Eldon Mustangs are firing on all cylinders, coming off of their third straight win, and it's their best yet.
Eldon hosted the School of the Osage for Homecoming last Friday and came out on top in a shootout. They got out to an early lead, then weathered an Osage comeback to earn a 52-49 victory.
The Mustangs have scored at least 52 points in their last three games and will carry that momentum into tonight's matchup with Hallsville.
The Indians will have their hands full with the Eldon running game. Levi Shinn has already rushed for more than 1,000 yards this season. The Mustangs pair him with bruiser Trenton Kidwell, who is coming off of a four-touchdown game himself, to form a devastating combo in the backfield.
Head coach Shannon Jolley thinks getting a good game out of Kidwell in particular will be important.
"We want to make sure we can establish our inside run game," Jolley said. "I think their two linebackers and their down lineman, their nose guard, is some of their strength. We just want to see how we match up early and see if we can get our inside run game established."
One of those linebackers is Connor Drummond, the most talented defensive player for Hallsville. He didn't play a full game last week against Versailles, but Jolley is expecting to see him on the field tonight.
"We do think he's probably their best player on the field," Jolley said. "We're definitely going to need to account for him, especially in the middle on defense. I think he's as good a player as anyone in the conference. He's always around the ball and does some good things. We think their linebacking core is one of the better ones we'll see in the conference."
Defensively, Eldon is still making adjustments. The Mustangs made some changes in the secondary to help their pass defense, but it's left some holes, which Osage took advantage of to put up some of their points in the second half.
One of those weaknesses is defending the screen, as Osage had one of its biggest plays of the game on a screen pass to Dylan Brown for a long touchdown. Hallsville also had success last week with the screen pass against Versailles, so that is one area Jolley will focus on coming into this game.
"They did a good job in the screen game (against Versailles)," Jolley said. "We're looking to make sure we can hopefully defend the screen pass. ... When we installed the changes to our pass defense, we haven't seen many teams that use screens so you try to prioritize, put things in a priority, then we kindof got hit in the screen game pretty big against Osage, so that's something that we'll put a lot of attention into this week."
The other player Jolley is looking to key in on for Hallsville offensively is tight end Taylor Vincent. He's a quality pass catcher Jolley knows he needs to keep an eye on.
Eldon at Hallsville - Updates on Twitter: @EldonMustang. Listen live online: lakeradio.com
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