Nocona
The Nocona Indians stayed undefeated on the season with a high-scoring win against Trenton on a Friday night home game.
After the Indians gutted through a defensive struggle the previous week, Nocona had to score a lot against the Tigers to win 48-36.
Nocona knew it had a challenge with Trenton’s running game. The Tiger’s three-headed attack all brought different things while running behind a zone-blocking scheme that is different from the norm.
The Indians offense faltered on their first drive when a high snap lost a lot of yards and forced a punt. Trenton marched down to score the first touchdown when its quarterback kept the ball and ran up the middle for a 25-yard touchdown.
Nocona answered with a scoring drive that ended with quarterback Brady McCasland scoring on a short quarterback read run to tie the game at 7-7.
Rinse and repeat as both teams scored on their next two drives, ending in almost identical ways with both quarterbacks scoring with their legs again. McCasland’s second score was followed by a missed extra point which put the Indians behind 14-13 early in the second quarter.
Trenton looked to be on its way to scoring its third touchdown when the Indian’s Kasch Johnson forced a fumble on and teammate Jose Gomez recovered it on Nocona’s own 20-yard line.
The Indian offense took advantage and McCasland found leading receiver Charlie Fuller for a 28-yard touchdown pass to put Nocona up for the first time all game 21-14 after a successful two-point conversion.
The Indians did a little short pooch kick-off that was bobbled and then recovered by Gomez again to give them the ball right back. McCasland then dropped back to pass, scrambled up the middle before cutting to the right sideline and scoring on a 29-yard touchdown run to go up 28-14.
Believe it or not, Nocona pushed its luck on special teams with an intential onside kick and got the ball back again when Walker Murphey recovered the ball.
Again the Indian’s offense met little resistance and the drive resulted in McCasland scoring on another short run off a quarterback read play to put Nocona up 35-14.
The Tigers were not just going to lie down. Trenton responded with a touchdown drive with its quarterback scoring on a 24-yard run to cut Nocona’s lead to two scores 35-21.
With a little more than two minutes before halftime, the Indian offense had to move fast. They zoomed down the field before McCasland scored on an 18-yard run to put Nocona up 42-21 heading into halftime.
The Indian defense forced another turnover when Fuller recovered a fumble around midfield in the opening minutes of the second half.
The Nocona offense took advantage as McCasland would later score on a 15-yard run to put the Indians up 48-21 midway through the third quarter.
Nocona’s offense seemed to coast for the rest of the second half while its defense was able to get some more stops outside of forcing turnovers.
The run heavy Trenton offense had to start trying to force some passes, with most of them going to one its two running backs who scored a touchdown near the end of the game and the one to a receiver going for a touchdown back in the third quarter.
Still, the Indian defense held up to not let the game get much drama as Nocona won 48-36.

Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Panthers’ non-district schedule has been leading up to this game.
The Panthers make the long drive down to undefeated, state-ranked Union Hill on Friday to start off district play.
This is the fourth straight season the two programs separated by nearly three hours are playing each other.
The first two times were because both teams were ranked in the top 10 in the state and wanted to beef up their non-district schedules with a team near their level.
Last year and this year it is because the teams somehow are in the same football district despite nearly 200 miles separating them.
The Bulldogs own the series lead at 2-1, with last year’s game being the least competitive as Union Hill won 61-16.
The Bulldogs return two of their top playmakers from last year’s team and are undefeated on the season so far. The only close games have been one-score wins against Milford and Gold-Burg.
Saint Jo is 4-3 entering district, with a lot of new faces this season and few returners to lean on. The Panthers have been put the through the fire with one-sided losses against Crowell and state-ranked Knox City. The other loss was a competitive game against Gold-Burg.
Coach Mark Stevens has been preparing his team for this game all season. The players have been hearing about Union Hill since the first week of practice. Every rough stretch during games were for this game.

Forestburg vs Gold-Burg
Forestburg opens up district play facing fellow Montague County team Gold-Burg on Friday.
Both teams are coming off a bye-week in preparation for a district schedule that will be tough.
The Bears come in as favorites, having won the last four games and coming in with a 5-2 record. Gold-Burg is trying to reconcile coming back from back-to-back losses against Motley County and Union Hill, both games where the team had terrible starts before trying to dig itself out of the hole.
Before that, the Bears started 5-0 with only one game getting played past halftime in their win against fellow county team Saint Jo for the first time in more than a decade.
Gold-Burg is led heavily by its senior playmakers, but the team has shown enough from its other players to have options in the tough test ahead.
Coach Christian Healer emphasized his team has to have enough discipline heading into this game to take Forestburg seriously and start fast and not rest on their performance in non-district since these games will start to count towards the playoffs.
The Longhorns are counting on teams maybe looking past them and surprising them. Forestburg has a 1-5 record despite having an experienced team heading into the season. Part of that was the non-district schedule was tough, with multiple games against really tough teams to get Forestburg ready for the district schedule. Part of that was just the team not playing as well as Coach Greg Roller would have liked.
Roller did his best to prepare his team for what is ahead because the district is brutal.
Traditional state-power Strawn is 5-2 and defending district champs Newcastle is 6-1. Only two teams will make the playoffs meaning two or more losses earns a team no postseason play.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.