Cardinals deliver early knockout blows, pummel Panthers to move closer to CCC championship

SHELBINA, Mo. — It was billed as a heavyweight bout between two undefeated, state-ranked football teams for sole possession of first place in the Clarence Cannon Conference.

South Shelby wasted little time in landing the knockout blows.

The Cardinals scored three touchdowns during a five-minute stretch in the first quarter and Kendal Hammond continued his season-long dominance on the ground by rushing for 255 yards and four more scores en route to a 48-14 victory over Centralia on Friday night at Charles Rash Memorial Field.

Cameron Wiseman scored two touchdowns, returned a punt 57 yards to set up another score and came up with an interception inside the 10 to snuff out a Centralia drive to help South Shelby, ranked seventh in Class 2, run its record to 8-0 overall and 6-0 in the CCC.

The Cardinals can wrap up their first CCC championship since 2005 — and their first undefeated regular season since 2000 — next Friday at home against Palmyra.

“We expected a battle, a war,” Wiseman said. “We wanted to attack first and be the aggressor. We wanted to come out, smack them in the mouth and just keep the foot on the pedal all game.”

South Shelby did exactly that.

After the Panthers turned the ball over on downs at midfield on the game’s opening possession, the Cardinals needed just three plays to make it 6-0. A 44-yard burst up the middle by Hammond, shedding several would-be tacklers along the way, set up Wiseman’s 2-yard TD run.

Less than a minute later, Aadon Magruder blocked a Cullen Bennett punt and Cooper Elsen recovered it in the end zone for a 12-0 South Shelby lead.

The Cardinals then went 59 yards on four plays on their next possession — quarterback Chase Moellering picked up 40 of those yards on a keeper — with Wiseman scoring from the 3 and then tacking on the two-point conversion to make it 20-0 with 3:34 left in the opening quarter.

Just like that, Centralia, ranked fourth in Class 3, was on the ropes.

“That was a butt kicking,” Panthers coach Tyler Forsee said. “They got things rolling and it was tough to slow them down. When things started to unravel, it was tough to get them back together versus a team like that.

“Hats off to South. They’ve got some dudes who can flat-out play football and get after it.”

It got worse for the visitors.

Four minutes into the second quarter, Wiseman fielded a punt at his own 31, started up the left sideline, reversed field, found a wall and scampered down the right sideline to the Centralia 12.

Two plays later, Hammond swept around the right end and dove to the pylon to make it 26-0.

“I went left because I saw an opening,” Wiseman said of the return, “but then I saw a bunch of them flow my way, so I cut back right. I just turned on my jets as much as I could before I got out of breath.”

“Our special teams were outstanding,” South Shelby coach Adam Gunterman said. “We had the blocked punt and the return by Cameron. He is one of the best players in the state of Missouri.”

Centralia (7-1, 5-1 in the CCC) came in averaging 34.8 points and nearly 227 yards rushing per game. But the early deficit forced it to virtually abandon the run and rely on the passing of Bennett, a 6-foot-2 senior who had completed 61.5 percent of his passes for 1,096 yards and 11 touchdowns through seven games.

Bennett finally got the Panthers on the board by hitting Elliott McCoy over the middle with a 26-yard scoring strike with 53 seconds left in the first half and then running in the two-point conversion to trim the deficit to 26-8.

Any momentum they may have gained was dashed, however, when the Cardinals took the second-half kickoff and marched 63 yards on 10 plays, with Hammond flattening two would-be tacklers at the goal line to make it 32-8.

Hammond then swept left and went 80 yards down the sideline for a touchdown on the final play of the third period. His two-point conversion increased the lead to 40-8.

“It was great blocking all around,” Hammond said. “I just read my blocks and it opened up.”

Bennett, who completed 18 of 38 passes for 185 yards and was picked off twice on a night when winds were gusting to 25 mph and light rain fell intermittently, hooked up with McCoy for a 14-yard touchdown pass five minutes into the final quarter before Hammond added his fourth score on a 6-yard run with 4:11 left.

South Shelby accumulated 376 yards on only 51 offensive plays, with Hammond carrying the ball 26 times. He now has rushed for 1,583 yards and 26 touchdowns for the season and is averaging a staggering 13.8 yards per carry.

Moellering and Wiseman combined for another 102 yards on the ground. The Cardinals have scored 42 or more points in every game and are averaging 51.1.

“We beat a good football team,” Gunterman said of Centralia. “But you know, it doesn’t mean anything yet. Like I told the guys, it’s time to finish. We don’t want to share anything. We want to win the Clarence Cannon outright, so that means we have to come out focused against Palmyra.”