The second quarter has consistently been a successful period for the Warrenton football team this season. Unfortunately, the Warriors have often struggled to generate offense outside of that stretch and have allowed opponents to dominate much of the remainder of their contests.

Such was the case last Friday, as Warrenton’s only points came during a highly-productive and brief window of time that was not enough to avoid a lopsided 56-18 defeat to Orchard Farm. The setback dropped Warrenton to 2-5 and eliminated the Warriors from the GAC North Conference race, giving Winfield control of the league.

“We just absolutely struggled to make a big play when we needed it,” said Coach Jason Koper. “We’d get the ball inside the five-yard line and fail to score or have a miscommunication and break down on offense.”

Orchard Farm took advantage of the Warriors’ miscues, establishing an immediate 21-0 lead.

“We got ourselves behind the 8-ball on our first defensive play and they scored in a hurry,” said Koper.

The Eagles opened the game in dominant fashion, scoring long touchdown runs on their first two offensive plays and following up with an 81-yard interception return for a score.

Koper challenged his team, which bounced back during that second quarter.

“I took a timeout and called everybody in and told them ‘we can either roll over and let them turbo clock us or we can get back in it,’” said Koper.

Senior Kolby Meine hauled in a 26-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Caelon Weir to open the second quarter. Weir crossed the goal just over a minute later with a one-yard keeper.

The two teamed up yet again at the 9:28 mark of the period on a 64-yard touchdown strike that was the result of an audible on Meine’s part. Planning to run a hook-and-ladder that had been successful the previous week, Meine noticed the defense collapse on the receiver, leaving him wide open running space.

“When he turned to pitch it to Issiah, nobody was around him, so he just took off,” said Koper. “It was a real heads up play on Kolby’s part.”

Meine finished the game with 139 yards on four receptions, but the Warriors would never score again after that three-minute flurry of offense that closed the gap to 21-18 at halftime.

Defensively, Warrenton succumbed to depth limitations, as Orchard Farm went on to unleash another five touchdowns in the second half.

“From that point we just had the inexperience we had to put out there on defense due to injuries,” said Koper. “We just weren’t in the right spots defensively. We had some bad reads and misalignments.”

Unlike in previous games this season, during which the Warriors enjoyed distributed contribution, the bulk of the productivity landed in the hands of a few seniors.

Weir completed 19 of 38 passes for 285 yards and two touchdowns, to three interceptions.

Still plagued by injuries, Warrenton leaned heavily on senior Issiah Jones in the running game, as he managed 41 yards on 14 carries but was held out of the end zone amidst adverse field conditions.

“Issiah ran hard but that field got so wet in the second half that it was tough to get our run game going,” said Koper.

The Warriors amassed just 56 total rushing yards as a team.
Senior Joe Evans was also a major contributor, hauling in nine receptions for 80 yards.

Warrenton was still without several starters, including two who are sidelined for the remainder of the season.

“If we had (Joe) Goldsmith or (John) Starkey, things could’ve looked a lot different,” said Koper. “It also hurt us to still not have Troy Lundy or T.J. Ray on the line. The freshmen did as well as they could, but we just couldn’t overcome it.”

The Warriors welcome Mexico this Friday at 7 p.m., in hopes of securing a home district game with a victory.

“It’s senior night, so I’m excited for that,” said Koper. “It’s also our last guaranteed home game. If we win, we’ll have a really good chance of hosting Moberly for Week 10.”