Keeping his expectations realistic, Coach Steve McDowell knew his team would have a difficult time hanging with undefeated Zumwalt East on Friday. But he wasn’t anticipating a shutout nor falling …
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Warrenton Shut Out by Zumwalt east
Posted
By Derrick Forsythe, Record Sports Editor
Keeping his expectations realistic, Coach Steve McDowell knew his team would have a difficult time hanging with undefeated Zumwalt East on Friday.But he wasn’t anticipating a shutout nor falling behind by two touchdowns before Warrenton could even muster an offensive drive of its own.Zumwalt East scored on two of its first three plays from scrimmage en route to a 54-0 thumping that McDowell says his team will do its best to put in the rear-view mirror as it prepares for the district opener at Hannibal on Thursday.“We knew coming in they were undefeated for a reason, but I really thought we’d be a little more competitive than that.”The Warriors’ defense struggled to contain Zumwalt East’s skill players and learned how dangerous the Lions can be in the open field.D’Andre Campbell scored on a 31-pass play from Shane Barrett on the opening from scrimmage and danced 75 yards for another score just two minutes later.“We knew it was coming and we wanted to force them back to the inside, because we don’t have kids fast enough to catch them in space,” said McDowell.Zumwalt East proved very efficient on each drive, guided by Barrett’s extremely accurate arm. He completed 10 of 11 passes for four touchdowns on the night. Three of those scoring tosses came in the second quarter as the Lions built a 40-0 halftime advantage.Working with favorable field position aided Zumwalt East.“We get a punt blocked, and they’re able to score right away,” recalled McDowell. “We can’t help them out like that.”Warrenton had limited success moving the ball, mostly on the ground. But with the Power-I formation generating an average of just three yards per carry, sustaining drives was a struggle.“Offensively, we really couldn’t get much going in the first half,” said McDowell.Zach Logan rushed for 65 yards on 14 touches, while Corey Eckenfels had 37 yards on 13 carries.They were the only two with positive rushing yardage.“We’ve got a couple of pass plays we tried to work in, but without many longer plays we aren’t able to convert on third down,” said McDowell. “We kind of limited with only being able to run.”Quarterback Braydan Chmiel completed four of his six pass attempts for 23 yards as the Warriors primarily relied on the ground game.“They were stacking nine or 10 guys in the box, but we were still able to get some yardage that way,” said McDowell.Warrenton crept into scoring position on a few occasions but a fumble and other mistakes proved costly.“We made a couple visits into their territory but made a penalty or a turnover,” said McDowell. “We just didn’t give ourselves an opportunity to punch it in.”Zumwalt East bullied its way through the line of scrimmage, taking advantage of a size mismatch.The Lions rushed for a combined 289 yards, with seven different backs contributing at least 24 yards.McDowell says the focus immediately turned to the Warriors’ district opponent.“Friday is done, and we’ve got to focus on Hannibal. Every week you’ve got to take some positives and try to coach the kids up not to make the same mistakes on the negative end,” said McDowell.He says its important not to dwell on the past two weeks, which have been a disappointing with both a last-second defeat and a blowout.“We’ve got two weeks of bad taste in our mouth,” said McDowell. “We’ve got to look forward and focus on erasing that.”
Warrenton sophomore quarterback Braydan Chmiel throws against Zumwalt East.
