After mirroring 34-7 losses in which the Wright City football team’s offense struggled to find its footing to begin the season, the Wildcats found a bit more success, even in defeat at Bowling Green last Friday.

The Wildcats’ offense found the end zone twice in the first half as the team kept pace with the host Bobcats before falling 54-18.

Junior quarterback Kayden McCurdy, who threw for 141 yards including a 61-yard score to TJ Hamel, said that the unit has been working hard to improve through the early season and that the success found against Bowling Green is no accident.

“The offense seemed to click way better; we’ve really been working on it during practice,” McCurdy said. “We have the athletes and the team to have a great offense. We are finally starting to understand our new playbook and once we get it all down, we will be a dangerous offensive team. (We need to) turn a great half into 48 minutes.”

In addition to the McCurdy-to-Hamel strike, Wright City also got a 63-yard scoring run from junior Kaveon Schulte and an interception for a score of 43 yards from McCurdy.

Schulte led the team with 127 all-purpose yards.

Wright City Coach John Klekamp said that while the team’s ability to turn in a handful of big plays was commendable, the offense's inability to sustain success ultimately hurt the defense.

“Our game against Bowling Green was a great opportunity for our football team to get going in a positive direction,” Klekamp said. “Although we found success through these big plays, we struggled to possess the ball and consistently move the chains. This put pressure on our defense, which had a tough task with Bowling Green running an up-tempo offense and putting up 80 offensive plays.”

While the defense was worn out by game’s end, Klekamp said he saw plenty of positives early on.

But the attrition of a full high school football game did affect Wright City.

“During the first half, our defense continued to show promise,” Klekamp said. “(We had) two red zone stops and a turnover for a score on an interception by Kayden. We also sustained some significant injuries throughout the night and relied on some younger players on both sides of the ball.”

Defensively, the team had three pass deflections, a fumble recovery and a sack from junior Hank Jennings, and an interception from sophomore Ethan Weber to accompany McCurdy’s pick.

Senior Benji Rodriguez led the team with 16 total tackles, including 12 solo tackles.

Up next, the Wildcats will head back out on the road. Wright City will take on Louisiana (3-0) at 7 p.m. on Friday. Last season, Wright City beat Louisiana 27-14 at home.

For his part, McCurdy said he has little interest in focusing on the Bulldogs.

The junior said he feels Wright City’s focus should remain on Wright City and, if that is the case, things should take care of themselves.

“We have to work harder at practice, condition ourselves and hydrate better,” McCurdy said. “We have our ups and downs as a team but, at the end of the day, we are all a part of this football family. We know we have the athletes and the players to be great; we just have to put it all together and Louisiana is just another group of helmets. We start (to prepare) by working harder in practice and preparing like we would for any other team. Week by week, nothing changes but the color of the team’s uniforms; everything we do should be the same.”