HALLSVILLE, Mo. - It was a struggle for the Blair Oaks offense Friday night. Luckily for the Falcons, the Hallsville Indians had bigger struggles themselves.
Neither team scored in the second half, and Blair Oaks remained unbeaten to start the season, picking up an 18-6 win in Tri-County Conference play.
"We played really well defensively," Blair Oaks coach Terry Walker said. "We gave up a couple yards on their toss play and then we finally started getting a little pressure on the quarterback."
The Falcons held the Indians to 94 yards of total offense, with 51 of those yards coming in the fourth quarter.
"Any time you can do that defensively, you've got to be pleased," Walker said.
Blair Oaks scored on its first possession, a 12-play, 42-yard drive that ended with a Riley Lentz 4-yard run on fourth-and-goal. The Falcons failed on the 2-point try, leading 6-0 with 4:24 left in the opening quarter.
It's the fourth consecutive game Blair Oaks has scored on its opening offensive possession.
The Falcons struck again in the second quarter, finishing a nine-play drive with a 13-yard touchdown pass from Cade Stockman to Braydan Pritchett to make the score 12-0 with 8:56 left in the first half.
A bad snap on a punt attempt on Blair Oaks' next possession set up the Indians on the Falcons' 20-yard line. Four plays later, Mason Huskey took the pitch from quarterback Zane Parnell and made it into the end zone for an 8-yard run. That cut Blair Oaks' lead to 12-6 with 3:01 left in the half.
A 25-yard punt return by Pritchett, with a Hallsville personal foul penalty tacked on to the end of the play, set up Blair Oaks on the Indians' 35-yard line with 1:23 left in the first half. Stockman completed three straight passes, the third being a 16-yard strike to Ben Thomas for a touchdown with :43 to play. Blair Oaks took an 18-6 lead into halftime.
Blair Oaks did not score on any of its second-half possessions and was unable to move the chains during the game's final 18 minutes.
"We have to figure out how to take a lot of those possessions on offense and be more productive with them than what we were tonight," Walker said.
Hallsville had two possessions in the red zone late in the fourth quarter, coming up empty on both drives. The first ended with a sack on fourth down, while the next drive ended with an interception by Thomas in the end zone with less than a minute to play. It was the only takeaway of the game for either team.
Lentz led the Blair Oaks rushing game with 12 carries for 75 yards. Pritchett added 15 rushes for 48 yards.
Stockman was 14-of-28 passing for 125 yards and two touchdowns. Pritchett had eight catches for 56 yards and Marcus Edler added two catches for 52 yards.
The Falcons finished with 183 total yards of offense.
Cooper Crane led Hallsville (3-2, 1-2 Tri-County) with 11 carries for 25 yards.
Blair Oaks (5-0, 3-0 Tri-County), ranked No. 2 in Class 3, hosts Southern Boone (3-2, 1-2 Tri-County) at 7 p.m. next Friday for Homecoming. The Eagles won 55-51 on Friday against School of the Osage.
With the Indians' loss, Blair Oaks holds sole possession of first place in the Tri-County.