Wright City’s game against North Callaway on Oct. 24 was not indicative of the Wildcats’ play this season.

The Wildcats had an upbeat attitude after closing the regular season with a 54-0 loss at North Callaway, getting shut out for the first time since 2020. North Callaway won its first Eastern Missouri Conference championship since 2017 after rushing for 209 yards while holding Wright City to 124 total yards.

Wright City coach Tyler Rickard said North Callaway is “a very talented” team this year that beat Wright City in all three phases of the game.

“That starts with me as the head coach as I have to do a better job of preparing the team and getting us ready to compete at a higher level,” Rickard said. “They gave us different looks on defense, they were super aggressive with their linebackers, their linemen gave us a lot of fits to prevent us from getting the run game going and they got pressure on us where our quarterback didn’t have a lot of time to connect on some passes we’ve been able to have success on.”

Rickard said he hoped Wright City’s defense (21.8 points allowed per game), which has been its best since 2019 (19.3), would stand up better to North Callaway’s running game and hoped for competitiveness all-around. However, he said Wright City has had a great season and has a team that will compete when districts start, or what he referred to as the new season.

The Wildcats achieved their second six-win season in the last three years and will host a playoff game at 7 p.m. on Oct. 30 as the No. 4 seed against Principia with Whitfield (4-4). Rickard said senior quarterback Dayton Humphreys wasn’t allowed much space as he was sacked three times, but his and other athletes’ ability to operate in space helped the team win six straight games at one point.

“Any time we can keep him clean and allow him to make decisions and get the ball out to our athletes out in space, that really helps us go,” Rickard said. “When we’re able to get our passing game going, we can be really explosive and really effective.”Wright City threw for 242 yards in a 41-16 win two weeks ago against South Shelby at home and then had 301 passing yards in a 26-20 overtime loss at conference rival Montgomery County.

Senior Quinn Schnarre was out with an ankle injury, or “hiccup” as he calls it, in those games and loves being able to play football again because “there’s nothing that compares to it.” Schnarre said his teammates stepping up while he was limited to the sideline is a testament to his team.

“It means a lot to me, the guys on offense, the guys on defense, the guys on the sideline and coaches,” Schnarre said. “To see how much grit and resilience the guys on defense had to push through and persevere and to force that game into overtime after being down so much at halftime, it means a lot.”

Rickard said the blame for the regular season finale isn’t fixated on one person because the team takes credit for losses along with wins.

“It’s both schematically what we need to do differently, physically in terms of our techniques and mentally how we can rebound when things start going the wrong way and just keeping everybody encouraged and keeping it positive,” Rickard said about the message after Friday’s loss. “We’ll focus on those three things this week.”

Wright City faced only one district opponent in the regular season when it won 14-8 at Winfield. However, Rickard said he likes his team’s chances against the rest of the district field.

“Coming into it, we feel we have a district where we can be competitive when we play well,” Rickard said. “We have to have a great week of practice and adjust to any schedule changes that may occur.”

No matter the result, Rickard wants to see “a strong and competitive game” from the Wildcats, and that aligns what Wright City football is to Schnarre. Rickard has been a great mentor for Schnarre during his four years with the program.

“I love Wright City football,” Schnarre said. “Wright City is a family to me. I wouldn’t want to play football anywhere else.”