The Wright City football team proved Friday just how quickly it can change gears to devastate an opponent.
In the team’s 41-20 win at Mark Twain, the Wildcats proved initially devastating …
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The Wright City football team proved Friday just how quickly it can change gears to devastate an opponent.
In the team’s 41-20 win at Mark Twain, the Wildcats proved initially devastating in the passing game before switching to a running attack that flattened the Tigers and earned the team its fourth straight win.
“We’ve got some very talented athletes on this team,” coach Tyler Rickard said. “We can find a lot of ways to score.”
Wright City (4-1 overall, 3-0 Eastern Missouri) scored a pair of first-quarter touchdowns on strikes from the team’s quarterback to its top wideout option so far in 2025.
The scores came from 35 and 12 yards from senior quarterback Dayton Humphreys to senior wideout Nate Turner with 5 minutes and with 40 seconds left, respectively, in the quarter.
“Nate is such a talented receiver,” Humphreys said. “I know I can (throw it up field) and he’s going to be the guy who comes down with it for us.”
Mark Twain (1-4, 0-2) added a score early in the second on a 4-yard run by junior Wyatt Briscoe and added a 2-point conversion before the Wildcats turned to the ground game to find the end zone.
Sophomore Kayden McCurdy found paydirt with 4:44 left in the second quarter from 10 yards out before junior back Benji Rodriguez scored from 25 yards out with 45.4 seconds left in the half to send the game to intermission with a 28-8 score in Wright City’s favor.
“It’s great to have both of us out there doing well,” Rodriguez said. “He’s a great back and I think things went really well for us tonight and I expect them to keep going well in the future.”
After a quiet third quarter, Briscoe added a 4-yard run nearly midway through the fourth and, after a missed conversion, Wright City led 28-14.
From there, Wright City’s quick-strike offense went back to work.
On the first play of the ensuing drive, Humphreys took the snap and ran it 61 yards to the end zone to make it 34-14 with 7:19 left.
After Ben Gomez recovered the ensuing kickoff at the Twain 5, Rodriguez scampered into the end zone on the first play of the drive, just seven seconds later, to make it 41-14 after the McCory PAT.
A 4-yard run from Briscoe in the waning minutes pulled Twain closer, but to no avail.
The win marks the fourth straight over Twain to tie the all-time series at six between the EMO rivals.
Up next, Wright City will return home to America’s Heartland Stadium for a 7 p.m., Friday kickoff. South Shelby will oppose the Wildcats for the team’s first-ever meeting.
“They’re a very good team that we’re going to have to be ready to go against,” Rickard said. “They’ve been very successful, and they have a great quarterback. This isn’t a team we can take lightly.”
