WARDSVILLE, Mo. - The Blair Oaks Falcons are averaging more than 50 points per game this season.
The Warsaw Wildcats have scored 71 points - total.
When the Falcons (7-0 overall, 5-0 Tri-County Conference) travel to Warsaw tonight to take on the Wildcats (0-7, 0-5), they'll be looking to keep a slumping team firmly entrenched in its skid.
"From watching them on tape, it looks like they're a little inconsistent and I know they've turned the ball over a bit," Blair Oaks head coach Terry Walker said. "Any time you turn the ball over, it's going to be tough to win a whole lot of football games.
"I think they've got some good athletes, we just need to make sure that we give them no reason to believe that they can win the game. We've just got to play four quarters, play through the whistle, and if we do that, then again we'll have a good chance to be successful."
Two of those good athletes are junior quarterback Will Bunch and senior running back Austin Steenburgen.
"Both of them do some good things when they have the ball in their hands," Walker said.
Bunch has completed 38-of-82 passes for 411 yards with five touchdowns and five interceptions. His favorite target is senior Devon Parish, who has 12 catches for 132 yards and two scores. Matt Luebbert, a freshman, has almost matched Parish's yardage total with 103 of his own on just three catches, and one of them went for a touchdown.
Steenburgen has rushed for 706 yards, more than 68 percent of the team's total, on 129 carries for an average of 5.5 yards per carry. He has five of the team's six rushing touchdowns.
Walker said the Wildcats like to run 70-75 percent of the time on first and second down, then often will throw more on third down depending on the distance.
"They run a lot of counter, so they like to pull the backside guard and tackle on a lot of plays and try to trap the front-side defensive players," Walker said. "They try to take advantage of over-pursuit by the defense and give the running back or quarterback the opportunity to cut back against the grain. If you're not playing good pursuit football, they're going to have an opportunity to make plays.
"On film, with every opponent that we have in common, they made plays against these teams, they just haven't made scoring plays. And that's a big difference."
Warsaw will present a lot of different looks on offense.
"We've seen them in trips right or left, we've seen them in doubles formation, we've seen them in a lot of shotgun with one back, we've seen them in an I-pro formation, we've seen them in an inverted bone, double-tight end formation," Walker said. "We just need to make sure that our kids understand how to adjust to the sets and what the responsibilities are for each set. If we do that, I like our chances."
On the other side of the ball, Warsaw is giving up an average of 46.4 points per game, having twice allowed teams to score in the 60s.
Steenburgen leads the team with 56 tackles from his safety position, while freshman lineman Eli Hawkins is second with 32 stops.
"Defensively, they've got some kids who can track the football a little bit," Walker said. "I wouldn't say there's anyone who jumps out on film."
The Wildcats operate out of a 4-3 front on defense.
"It's real similar to what we're doing defensively," Walker said. "They do play quite a bit of man coverage in the secondary and they're not afraid to bring their linebackers from time to time."
Walker said the Falcons can't afford to come out flat against the Wildcats.
"I'm sure Warsaw is going to be very fired up," he said. "It's their Senior Night, so it's going to be the last home game for many of the players on their team. We need to be prepared to face a really tough opponent and we need to answer that by coming out and playing some good football."
Helping the Falcons do that will be some recent reinforcements. Junior running back/safety Jake VanRonzelen returned last week after missing 31/2 games with a shoulder injury, playing more on the defensive side of the ball.
"We were really happy to get Jake back," Walker said. "From my perspective, I think we really, really need him on defense, so that's why he played so much there against California.
"He gives us the opportunity to play man coverage across the board in the secondary. If you can do that, then you can play your front seven however you want to."
Two-way lineman Heath Branch will see his first action after breaking his foot in the preseason.
"He's been working with the ones on both offense and defense this week," Walker said. "We feel really good about where he's at. We're hopeful he won't have any sort of reaggravation or anything like that.
"There's a couple games where if we had sustained an injury to one of the guys on offense or defense, we were going to be in a really tough bind depth-wise. We've been really lucky in that regard, and we certainly hope that luck continues as we move forward because if you want to finish off the regular season strong and be in position to make a good push in districts, you need to have everybody healthy."
Notes: Having played just three road games this season, each of them roughly an hour away, the Falcons will spend more time on the bus this week. "This will be our longest away trip of the year so far," Walker said. "Hopefully we get the opportunity to take some longer ones (in the playoffs)." ... The Falcons and Wildcats have four common opponents so far, all of them conference foes. Warsaw has lost to School of the Osage (42-13), Eldon (65-7), Hallsville (43-23) and Southern Boone (67-6). Blair Oaks has beaten Osage (51-22), Eldon (62-47), Hallsville (48-0) and Southern Boone (61-26). ... The Wildcats' other losses were to Clinton (19-7) and Cole Camp (43-0).
Blair Oaks at Warsaw - Updates on Twitter: @tony_hawley. (If a live webcast stream becomes available, we'll post the link here near kickoff.)
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