First-half dominance carries Monroe City, slow second half leaves room for improvement

CENTER, Mo. — The Monroe City football team dominated the first half of its season opener Friday night against Mark Twain.

And that proved to be enough.

With sophomore Quincy Mayfield leading the way with 110 rushing yards and two touchdowns, the Panthers used a relentless running attack to rack up 266 yards of total offense while limiting the Tigers to just 2 yards and no first downs to build a 26-0 halftime lead en route to a 32-16 victory.

Monroe City ran 34 offensive plays to just 13 for Mark Twain in the opening half, but stalled drives and defensive lapses prevented the Panthers from duplicating that effort in the second half.

“Starting out with a lot of new starters, a lot of young guys, they got the win,” Monroe City coach David Kirby said. “With that being said, we have pretty high expectations on the way we perform. And we have to be honest with ourselves. There were a whole lot of moments that we could have been better.

“We have a lot of room to grow. I’m very happy for the win, and I’m also happy that we have the opportunity to go teach these kids and see where we can make big strides from week one to week two.”

The Panthers drove 62 yards on nine plays after taking the opening kickoff, with Mayfield scoring from a yard out to make it 6-0. After forcing a three-and-out, they kept the ball for more than six minutes and marched inside the Tigers’ 10 before the drive stalled.

After another three-and-out and a short punt, Mayfield took a handoff, darted down the right sideline and cut all the way back across the field to score from 39 yards out to make it 12-0.

“He’s a pretty special player,” Kirby said of Mayfield, who was limited to just two carries and six yards in the second half because of cramping. “We’ve got a lot of special kids.”

Senior Waylon DeGrave appeared to increase Monroe City’s lead when he stepped in front of Coden Miller to intercept a Nolan Epperson pass and return it 31 yards down the sideline for a touchdown. The return was nullified, however, because of a blocking in the back penalty.

Still, six plays later, Abram Smyser scored from a yard out and then tacked on the two-point conversion to make it 20-0 with 3:51 left in the first half. 

The Panthers regained possession with 1:45 to go and needed seven plays to go 77 yards, with quarterback Trey Smyser scampering 36 yards to the Tigers’ 9 before scoring from 2 yards out with 6.9 seconds left to make it 26-0.

“Defensively, we were on the field too much and we couldn’t get the ball moving offensively,” Mark Twain coach Mark Epperson said of the opening half. “We made some adjustments (defensively) at halftime, kept working hard and got a couple of touchdowns to energize the guys.”

Junior Jack Dotson raced 58 yards for a touchdown on the second play of the third quarter and Aiden Waters’ two-point conversion run cut the deficit to 26-8. It was the Tigers’ biggest play of the night.

“Jack does a really good job of running that zone run,” Epperson said of the diminutive back who finished with 61 yards on nine carries. “He sticks his foot in the dirt and gets down the field really quick.”

Mark Twain had Monroe City stopped on its next possession, but a personal foul penalty on third down gave the Panthers new life. Eight plays later, Abram Smyser caught a pass from Trey Smyser from 2 yards out to make it 32-8 with five minutes remaining in the third period.

Eli Tobin broke several tackles to score from 10 yards out with 8:28 to go in the game and Dotson tacked on the two-point conversion to create the final score.

“We want to play fundamentally sound, and we want to finish off every play,” Kirby said. “I thought in the second half we weren’t as sharp with our fundamentals. That led to some mistakes, some stalled drives. So, we gotta keep improving.”

Junior Dylan Ross finished with 80 yards rushing on six carries and sophomore Jayden Holland had another 75 yards on 15 tries for Monroe City, which had 312 yards on the ground and 362 overall.

Mark Twain finished with 123 yards of total offense, all but 17 on the ground.

DeGrave, who rushed for 1,445 yards last season before suffering a knee injury in the state quarterfinals, spent the entire game at receiver and did not have a carry. He caught three passes for 33 yards.

“We wanted to see what the young’uns could do,” Kirby said when asked about DeGrave’s lack of carries. “I know what (DeGrave) can do in the backfield. And they had a game plan to try to stop him. They had two people on top of him and sometimes four, and that opened up a lot of space for the other guys.”