WARDSVILLE - Blair Oaks coach Ted LePage was not thrilled with his team's passion following a 65-7 win against California to end the regular season.
He spent roughly a half hour talking with his team in the locker room after that game, a task that has typically taken a mere five minutes following most games.
The talk worked, and LePage was more pleased following the Falcons' 70-0 win to open postseason play Friday night at the Falcon Athletic Complex in the Class 2 District 5 playoffs.
"I really felt like we were going to come out and play really good football tonight, and I thought we did," LePage said.
Blair Oaks dominated on offense and defense in the first meeting with California, while the Pintos had the check mark for special teams play.
The Falcons stole that check mark Friday to win all three facets of the game.
"The equalizer is special teams, and we had a special teams score tonight," LePage said. "That's always big."
California fumbled the ball on a punt attempt on its opening possession of the game, and Nico Canale's recovery led to the game's first touchdown.
With 2:36 left in the first half, Blair Oaks sophomore Carson Prenger broke through and blocked a punt attempt by California's Dawson Gump inside the Pintos' 20-yard line. Prenger scooped up the loose ball as well for an 8-yard return for a touchdown to make the score 41-0.
Prenger's other touchdown this season came on a 29-yard interception return against Hallsville.
"That's his fourth (blocked punt), and we told him if he would use his outside, reach across and go low, the ball will ricochet and hit up in his belly," LePage said. "It didn't actually ricochet up in his belly, but it ricocheted off enough where he was able to scoop and score."
Prenger's blocked punt and touchdown altered California's punt game.
"They committed more guys to their punt protection, and we started returning the ball," LePage said. "That really adds another dimension to what we are trying to do."
The offense continued to do its part, accounting for nine of Blair Oaks' 10 touchdowns.
Nolan Hair continued to rewrite the Blair Oaks record books. He finished 12-of-12 passing for 240 yards and four touchdowns.
His third touchdown, a 17-yard pass to Braydan Pritchett on a fade route with :35.2 left in the first half, broke the school record for career passing yards. The previous record of 7,431 yards was set by his older brother, Jordan Hair, in 2015.
Nolan Hair's next pass was a 44-yard touchdown to Ben Thomas on the opening possession of the third quarter. It was his 34th touchdown throw this season, tying the single-season record set by his brother in 2015.
"It's exciting because he's so accurate," LePage said. "We could throw it a bunch, we could do a lot of things. But we're just playing complete football, and that's what we fee like Nolan is doing best."
On the last touchdown pass, Thomas was tripped up at the 10-yard line and began to stumble around the 5, but he still crossed the goal line before falling to the ground.
"He practices like that every day," LePage said of Thomas, who had four catches for 135 yards.
Blair Oaks finished with 393 yards of total offense. Riley Lentz added 88 yards rushing on 11 carries, finishing with a 20-yard run for a touchdown, making a spin and twisting around the California secondary at the 10-yard line.
"He's capable of doing that from 99 (yards)," LePage said. "He is going to be our unsung hero as we move on, because teams are going to have to do some things to stop our pass game."
Don't forget the defense, which also scored Friday night.
Marcus Edler's punt from midfield late in the third quarter pinned the Pintos at their own 3-yard line. Three plays later, Blair Oaks sophomore lineman Rylee Niekamp sacked California's Alex Currens near the back of the end zone on the opening play of the fourth quarter.
The Falcons already have four interceptions returned for touchdowns in 2018, but this was their first safety.
"We changed the line of scrimmage from the defensive line," LePage said. " He worked his edge, got off and moved right into the backfield. It looked like he was on the blitz, but nobody had touched him."
For the second straight week, Blair Oaks held the California offense to less than 50 total yards. The Pintos had 42 yards rushing on 35 carries and threw for just 6 yards.
"We were hoping they'd throw the ball a little bit more because we know it's going to be the test next week, so we wanted to see it," LePage said. "But when they did throw the ball, we were all over it every time."
Blair Oaks (10-0), the No. 1 team in Class 2, will face Father Tolton (4-6) in the district semifinals Friday. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at the Falcon Athletic Complex.
The Trailblazers, the No. 4 seed, attempted 32 passes in Friday's 59-20 district-opening win against Hermann. It was well below their average of 40.9 pass attempts per game during the regular season.
It didn't take more than a minute into LePage's postgame talk for him to tell his team to be ready for Tolton.
"They've scored over 40 points in each of the last four games," LePage said. "They're throwing up video game-type numbers. We're going to look at it long and hard, we'll do a lot of studying on film this week.
"We have some guys who can play too, and I think our defense has a little chip on its shoulder, because we've heard this team say that they can't be stopped. Our kids, more than anything, are excited. They want this challenge, and they want to see this team. We're going to be fired up as all get-up come next Friday night."