FULTON, Mo. - Fulton coach Pat Kelley wants his Hornets to do two things as they head into district play - forget and move on.
Fulton - coming off consecutive losses to end the regular season - is the fourth seed in Class 3 District 6 and will host a first-round game against the No. 5 Winfield Warriors tonight at Robert E. Fisher Jr. Stadium. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
"We have no common opponents, so it's hard to judge them (Winfield)," Kelley said. "It's one of those things that you will know early how it's going to go."
The Hornets (4-5) suffered a narrow 13-12 North Central Missouri Conference loss at Kirksville last week. Kelley said that setback was difficult to accept, but stressed his players have to find a way to put it behind them.
"It's a frustrating loss. It hurts probably as much as any loss that I've had as a head coach," Kelley said. "We just didn't execute at times where we needed to execute.
"We watched the tape yesterday (Monday) and we're done with it. We haven't mentioned it, we won't mention it, it hurts that bad, but we have to look ahead. You can't dwell on it. We move on to bigger and better things, and this is for sure a bigger game because you're fighting for your season."
Kelley noted the biggest threat tonight from Winfield (3-5) will be Collin Sutton, the Warriors' 6-foot-1, 185-pound sophomore quarterback. Sutton was injured earlier in the season, but still produced 1,139 yards passing and 15 touchdowns, while rushing for 637 yards and 10 scores. Sutton has thrown three interceptions.
"By far, that's who we have to concentrate on to slow them down," Kelley said. "Our first tape we had on them was a game he was injured in and then we got the new tape and I went, 'Whoa.' It's a completely different ball team with him in there."
Kelley indicated he is concerned with Sutton's elusiveness. Stopping the run has definitely not been the Fulton defense's forte this season. The Hornets allowed 355 yards rushing to Kirksville and are giving up 273 yards on the ground per game.
"He's good, he's mobile and that's probably the scariest thing going into the game - we're going to have to try to contain him," Kelley said of Sutton. "He does a lot of good things and we've got our work cut out just trying to contain him.
"What he also does well is that he'll take off and then he'll stop and try to pop it deep. He has the one main receiver, No. 10 (5-9, 150-pound senior Bobby Blount). He'll throw to him deep on the scramble plays and we need to make sure we play assignment football."
Blount has 51 catches for 689 yards and 10 touchdowns this season.
To tighten up the run defense, Kelley stressed that players have to be responsible for their respective duties.
"It's just maintaining (assignments). We haven't stayed in position very well all season," he said. "When Kirksville scored their first touchdown (a 92-yard run by Blake Lewis in the third quarter), our line got blown back, our linebacker made a great read, stepped right in there but couldn't tackle the guy.
"Our outside contain jumped inside, rather than staying outside. Safety made a great read, but just couldn't make the tackle. We can have one guy mess up, but when you have five guys to the same side mess up, bad things are going to happen. We have to be able to play assignment football and get back to slowing people down."
Kelley also explained that Fulton's defense has to force more three-and-outs. The Hornets allowed four third-down conversions last week.
"Probably my biggest concern isn't giving up the rushing yards, it's the number of third-and-longs we've given up," Kelley said. "We've got to do a better job of getting off the field on third down. Third-and-7 and third-and-8 have been a bugaboo for us.
"I don't know if it's because we're expecting pass because a lot of it comes off the run. I don't know if we play too conservative and don't want to make the big mistake, but we've got to do a better job of focusing on third down and making sure we go in and make a stop."
Kelley said Winfield - which is giving up 43.5 points per game - operated out of a 4-3 defensive look for most of the season, but switched to a 3-5 scheme in its 44-18 win against Lift for Life Academy Charter last week.
"They seem to be more aggressive out of the 3-5 and I'm sure that's why they went to it," he said. "We just don't usually see a team switch at this point in the season. We don't know what we're going to see. We're going to prepare for both."
Fulton will try to attack Winfield's defense with its successful passing game.
Senior quarterback Devin Masek has thrown for a career-high 2,083 yards this season with 19 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Kelley admitted the Hornets are leaning on Masek more this season because they have had difficulty running the ball. Fulton is averaging 133 yards on the ground.
"He's probably had a better year throwing the ball - some of that has been out of necessity," Kelley said. "We'd like to be able to control a little more on the ground, we just haven't been able to do that."
One of Masek's key targets - senior wide receiver Alec Fleetwood - will not be available tonight. Kelley said Fleetwood suffered a sprained right ankle in the first quarter last week. Senior wide receiver Isaac Franklin - who suffered an injury in the Hornets' 22-20 win at Boonville on Sept. 30 - is still not active.
"It's been a frustrating year, injury-wise," Kelley said. "You can't make excuses, but you make adjustments and you move on."
With both Fleetwood and Franklin missing, Kelley is counting on junior L'Trevion Vaughn and the rest of Fulton's receiving corps to fill the void. Vaughn finished with seven catches for 136 yards and a touchdown against Kirksville.
"He did a nice job of stepping up last week," Kelley said. "(Senior) Luke Gray is going to have to step up and play both sides of the ball (wide receiver and linebacker), and he's done a nice job of that and made some nice catches the other night to keep drives going.
"After that, it's receiver-by-committee. But it hurts not having Alec or Isaac in the lineup."
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