Timberwolves Roll Past Meade in Opener

The South Central football team opened its season with a win over Meade at home Friday night, 58-12.

Though the Timberwolves came away with the victory, head coach Brett Westrup said that the Timberwolves have plenty of areas in which to improve.

“We finally got some things figured out, made some adjustments, but, man, we watched film and there’s a lot of things to work on,” Westrup said. “Not major things, just little things, just little adjustments.

“We were not very disciplined. We had a lot of mental mistakes, but we’ve got to clean those things up.”

Still, the head coach said, it was the first game of the year, so it’s not unusual to find areas to improve after that.

The Timberwolves only stalled on their first drive and punted, but they never punted again after that. But Westrup noted the boys started with a fumbled snap, had a play for no gain, then a penalty on that opening drive, making it a third-and-18 situation.

He added the Timberwolves had three touchdowns called back on penalties, two of them 40-yard plays.

But Westrup said the boys had a good showing on defense, getting pressure on Meade quarterback Tate Jones and intercepting him twice. Dakota Thornesbery and Easton Huck had those interceptions.

On offense, Westrup said, the Timberwolves did a good job with pass protection and giving time for Huck to find the open receiver. Huck also did a good job of extending plays and scrambling to keep the play alive.

Huck completed 12 of 17 passes for 179 yards with two touchdowns.

“We did a pretty good job of sustaining drives,” Westrup said. “We didn’t turn the ball over. We only punted the one time.”

And despite some mistakes, he said, the boys did a good job of not letting mistakes get to them, but correcting things and moving on.

On offense, Huck led the team in rushing with 93 yards on 13 carries and four touchdowns and Coda Lindsay added 88 yards rushing on four carries with two touchdowns. Lindsay also caught a 17-yard touchdown pass.

Parker Price led the team in receiving with 67 yards on six receptions and a touchdown. Jett Petty added two catches for 46 yards.

On defense, Jack Willems led the Timberwolves with eight tackles and a sack, Colt Yoder and Lindsay each had seven tackles and Wiley York and Price each had five.

Westrup said that the Buffaloes did a good job of bringing defensive pressure on pass plays and he thought the Timberwolves did well in handling that. He added that Jones did a good job of extending plays.

“He would scramble around — on the two touchdowns they had, he’d scramble around and keep the play alive,” Westrup said. “And our defensive back would come up to stop the run and he’d just dump it open over us.”

The Timberwolves (1-0) will host Reno County this Friday. The Sabres are a homeschool team based out of Hutchinson. They lost their opener to Axtell 74-44.

“You don’t see many teams lose and score (44) points,” Westrup said. “They can score a lot of points and we’re going to have to be very disciplined on defense. We’re going to have to do our job, do our assignment.

“They like to throw the ball and we’re just going to have to keep the wide receivers in front of us. You know, stay on our man, get in our zones, don’t be distracted with other things that are going behind or around us.”

On defense, Westrup said, the Sabres bring a lot of pressure, but he believes the Timberwolves can throw the ball against them.

“We’re going to have to get on our blocks and stay on there, but we’re just going to have to play very disciplined on defense,” he said.