After suffering a close loss last season to Friday’s opponent, Van-Far – its first in eight games – the Wright City football team did its best to sidestep an early deficit before rolling to the 55-26 road win.

The win is the Wildcats’ sixth straight this season.

“It was their senior night, so we knew they were going to play smashmouth football,” Wright City senior quarterback Dayton Humphreys said. “We came out after that, took control and played our game.”

On the game’s opening drive, Van-Far took the ball 50 yards on four plays, and a 35-yard run for a score by Evan Utterback capped it. After a failed 2-point pass, Van-Far led 6-0.

Wright City responded late in the first quarter with a 10-play, 66-yard drive. With 2:44 left in the quarter, Humphreys hit sophomore Kaveon Schule from 16 yards out. The PAT by senior Caleb McCory gave Wright City a 7-6 lead.

On the Wildcats’ next drive, Humphreys found Schulte on a 66-yard scoring strike to make it 13-6 Wright City with 11:01 left in the half.

“It’s great to have a quarterback like Dayton,” Schulte said. “He gets the ball to Nate and me; He makes it easy for us to do our thing.”

After a 20-yard scoring run by senior Kasen Christian made the score 13-12 Wildcats, Wight City found paydirt again.

A seven-play, 71-yard drive was capped by a 15-yard pass from Humphreys to senior wideout Lavarious Green to make it 20-12 after the PAT with 3:09 left in the half.

A 23-yard run by junior Benji Rodriguez in the final minute capped the first half scoring at 27-12.

“It’s just so much fun to be able to see my guys do their thing,” Humphreys said. “We have great receivers, great backs, a great line. They make my job easy and fun.”

A 35-yard pass to Turner, a Rodruguez 23-yard run, Christian 5-yard and Evans 20-yard scores saw an eventful third quarter close with Wright City holding the 41-26 edge.

The Wildcats added the game’s final two scores on a Humphreys-to-Turner 32-yard strike and a Terrance Love 64-yard interception return for a touchdown.

“As a team, we didn’t play the way we’re used to playing on defense,” Love said. “I know we’re going to do better. It did feel great to get the pick-six. I grabbed it and just heard my teammates yelling ‘run!’”

Up next, Wright City (6-1 overall, 4-0 Eastern Missouri) will continue its EMO conference swing, as the team will return home at 7 p.m., next Friday to host Montgomery County in a battle of Wildcats.

That same night, Van-Far will host North Callaway.

“They are our closest geographic rival in the conference,” Wildcats coach Tyler Rickard said. “We’ve lost two games in the last minute over the last couple of years to them. It’s going to be a good game against a very good team.”

Wright City owns a 16-6 advantage in the series and had won eight straight before the Indians won on the road in Wright City last season.

Van-Far (4-3, 3-2) has alternated wins and losses each of the last four weeks.

 coach Lucas Gibson said that the Indians now have to look forward, toward the postseason.

“We’ve got guys who are banged up,” Gibson said. “We want to take care of those things and get ready for the postseason.”