A year after suffering a tough loss on opening night, the Warrenton football team will have its shot at revenge against Wentzville Liberty.

The Eagles travel to Warrenton Friday at 7 p.m. after beating the Warriors 23-6 in last year’s opener.

“Their defense looks like a younger group than what they had last year, but they’re still pretty good after looking at their jamboree film,” Warrenton Head Coach Steve McDowell said. “They’ve got very good weapons on both sides of the ball.”

Liberty primarily runs the option on offense, which can make for long nights for opposing defenses.

The Eagles rushed for 296 yards on 46 attempts (6.4 yards per carry) in last year’s win.

Senior running back Wesley Hines returns after rushing for a game-high 144 yards last season, and McDowell said stopping the run will be the biggest key for his team Friday night.

“They’ve got a good push coming across the line of scrimmage,” he said. “Their goal is to get three to four yards per chunk, and we’ve got to be good tacklers. We’ve got to be better than we were last year against them. I just got done watching film again, and we can’t afford to have the same amount of missed tackles and missed opportunities against a team like this. They’ll expose you very quickly if you’re not fundamentally sound.”

The Warriors began last year’s meeting with senior Drake Meine at quarterback, but junior Brenden Smith took over after an injury, finishing with 23 yards passing and 36 yards rushing.

Smith eventually took the starting quarterback job and finished the year with 1,026 passing yards.

He completed 60.4 percent of his passes and rushed for a team-high 1,332 yards, and McDowell hopes he can lead sustained drives Friday night.

“They didn’t pass a lot because they wanted to run the ball, so last year our defense was on the field a whole lot,” McDowell said. “We’ve got to take care of some things offensively and get the ball to our skill kids because I think we have a very talented group. If we can get them the ball in open field, I think we can do some damage.”

The Warriors return senior receivers Brandon Molinari (317 receiving yards, four touchdowns) and Caleb Strauss (204 yards, three touchdowns), and bring in senior receiver Eli Ecton.

McDowell hopes the extra talent on the outside, as well as a quarterback with experience, can keep his offense on the field and give his defense rest.

“For us to be successful on Friday night, we’re just going to have to be disciplined on both sides of the ball,” McDowell said. “This game is going to be won up front in the trenches, so our offensive and defensive lines are going to have to take over the game for us to win. If we take care of business and do things fundamentally correct, we’ll be OK. You’re always going to have a few mental mistakes, but limiting those mistakes will be huge.”