Prep Football: Fulton ends regular season tonight at Kirksville

A quartet of Fulton defensive players try to bring down Mexico junior quarterback Deion Wayman during the Hornets' 40-20 NCMC loss to the state-ranked Bulldogs in last week's annual Highway 54 Bowl in Fulton.
A quartet of Fulton defensive players try to bring down Mexico junior quarterback Deion Wayman during the Hornets' 40-20 NCMC loss to the state-ranked Bulldogs in last week's annual Highway 54 Bowl in Fulton.

FULTON, Mo. - With the start of district play just a week away, Fulton coach Pat Kelley wants his Hornets to pick up some steam in their regular-season finale.

Fulton (4-4, 2-3 North Central Missouri Conference) hopes to enter the district playoffs with an above-.500 record after a trip to Kirksville tonight for an NCMC contest against the Tigers. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.

"We talked about momentum going into districts. We also talked about how you win this game, you guarantee that you're not going to have a losing season," Kelley said. "We'll be 5-4 heading into districts and 3-3 in conference, and all of those things are big at this point.

"The most important thing is, you want to feel good about yourself going into Week 10."

Following their 40-20 conference home loss to the state-ranked Mexico Bulldogs in the annual Highway 54 Bowl last week, the Hornets remained fourth in the Class 3 District 6 standings with 32.41 points. Southern Boone is third with 38.79 points, while Winfield sits behind Fulton in fifth place with 24.44.

The top four teams host district first-round games.

"It was a hard-fought game and I was proud of the way the kids played," Kelley said of the loss to Mexico. "I told them after the game that three of our four losses are to ranked teams and I feel like we're really close to being a really good football team, but we have to get it to where we put four quarters together and not have lapses.

"Especially against good teams, you have to be focused all of the time."

Though the Hornets are starting to think about district play, Kelley stressed his squad's attention needs to remain on Kirksville. The Tigers (3-5, 3-2 NCMC) are coming off a 44-7 loss to Helias in Jefferson City.

"This game against Kirksville is important for us from a record standpoint and getting momentum into districts," Kelley said. "They (Tigers) are improved. They do a lot of things well. Offensively, they give you a lot of different looks and defensively, they're tough, they're hard-nosed and they fly to the ball.

"They won some games and I think they probably have some confidence coming into this game. I'm sure for them, being their last home game, they'll want to go off on a good note."

The Hornets should feel pretty familiar with the Tigers because they have seen Kirksville on film several times throughout the season.

"Everybody we've played, they played the team we played the week before we played them, so we have a lot of tape," Kelley said. "That's just the happenstance of how the conference goes - we kind of followed them."

Kelley explained Kirksville - which is averaging 16.4 points per game - likes to utilize 5-foot-6, 150-pound junior running back Blake Lewis out of several different formations.

"He has broken off a big run in every game I've seen, sometimes more than that," Kelley said. "You'll usually see them in a double-wing set much like we saw last week. They'll get into a true wishbone set and they'll get into spread sets.

"They're a lot like us in that they'll give you a lot of different looks, but they'll run the same plays, just in different formations. They're more run-oriented than we are."

Kelley noted Tigers junior quarterback John Bohon (6-3, 186) is also good with his feet.

"He likes to keep it, there were a lot of quarterback sneaks with him," Kelley said. "He can get out on the edge and he throws the ball fairly well. They give you a lot of different things you have to prepare for."

Fulton's defense again had difficulty slowing the run last week as Mexico collected 341 yards on the ground. That marked the fourth time this season the Hornets have given up more than 300 yards rushing in a game, bringing their season average to 262.8 yards allowed.

"We gave up a couple big runs against Mexico and we did that with Hannibal," Kelley said. "We haven't been as sound defending the run as we'd like to be. We just have to continue to try to improve.

"We're going to have to play gap responsibility once again and hope that we can at least slow them down."

Kirksville's defense is surrendering 29.4 points per game and primarily lines up in a 4-4 scheme. Kelley indicated the size of the Tigers' defensive linemen could be troublesome for the Hornets' running game, which managed a season-low 28 yards last week. Fulton is averaging 133.6 yards on the ground.

"They are big on the line of scrimmage. We've also seen them in a three-man front a few times as well," Kelley said. "We don't know what they'll do against us.

"But again, we're still trying to get the run going, at least enough to open up the pass more and that's still going to be our theme going into this game."

With the Hornets' run game throttled against Mexico, senior quarterback Devin Masek was 20-of-47 passing for 293 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions.

"He did a nice job. We threw more than we'd like to, but Mexico was really good up front and really stifled our chance to run the ball," Kelley said. "He's done a nice job. He runs the offense, he's a tough kid and hopefully continues to have success the rest of the year."

Kelley added that taking care of details tonight in Kirksville will assure that Fulton gets another home game when district play begins.

"Our confidence is fine, we just have to execute. We want to make sure we do things the right way and come away with a victory," he said. "The other thing is, if we win that game, we know for sure that we'll be at home in week 10. So that's awful big as well."

Fulton at Kirksville

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