Difficulty stalling Seneca’s offense and early turnovers doomed the Cassville football team in the Class 3, District 6 championship on Friday, as the Wildcats fell to the Indians, 47-14, in their first district title bout since 2020.

Clay Weldy, Cassville football coach, said although the Wildcats brought a seven- game win streak and higher quality of play into the contest, the performance was reminiscent of how the team played early in the season.

“We’ve been playing so well lately, the last two months, so to play the way that [Friday], it had a lot do with Seneca themselves, but we made a lot of mistakes that were unforced,” he said. “That’s frustrating, and I wish we’d had a better product on the field. We kind of played tonight like we did the first three weeks this season. It was like a going back in time, which is unfortunate. I just wish we had played better.”

The Indians opened the contest with a 72-yard drive taking 5:34 off the clock to go up 7-0. Seneca found paydirt again only 12 seconds later, forcing a fumble that popped up and into the hands of a defender and returned about 30 yards to the end zone.

A three-and-out by Cassville led to a punt and 88-yard Indians touchdown drive, putting the Wildcats down 20-0 early in the second quarter. The Wildcats found the scoreboard less than three minutes later, utilizing a pass interference call on third-and-long to set up a 42-yard Jaren Stearns run inside the 10, with Colton Roark scoring on a 12-yard run after a delay of game penalty.

The Indians, however, did not relent, scoring a 56-yard touchdown run to go up 27-7 with 5:52 left in the opening half. An interception on Cassville’s next drive allowed Seneca to hit a 34-yard touchdown pass with 1:22 left in the half to make the score 34-7 at the break.

Cassville started the second half with a 65-yard touchdown drive, capped by a 6-yard Easton Hughes touchdown run. The Indians added a 1-yard touchdown run and 5-yard touchdown run to supply the final scoreline.

“We came out, and they drove to the field,” Weldy said. “We fought them.

They’re a really good offensive, and they’re very physical. I was proud that we fought them. I thought, OK, it’s like last week when on the first drive the game, Mount Vernon scored on us. Then, on our first offensive play, we fumble, and it pops up right to a kid’s hands. That kind of set the tone for all night. We had some bad bounces, but, you know, they were the better team, and I give them all the credit. They outplayed us.”

Ethan Sizemore, senior lineman, said reaching the championship was a great turnaround from the 1-3 start to the season, but he wished the Wildcats had played better.

“To get here and to play as badly as we did everywhere, it didn’t feel like much consolation at all,” he said. “I think we played good all season. We had a couple hiccups in the beginning, but we’ve been playing great for the last seven weeks. We won seven straight, then to show up here and get, frankly, abused, is not what I thought or wanted to happen at all.”

Colton Roark, senior wide receiver, said the team came into the contest full of confidence and hope.

“To be fair, I wasn’t expecting [to get this far] at first, especially after that first week and the next couple weeks after that,” he said. “Then, we got rolling, got on that nice little seven game win streak, and I was full of hope. I didn’t think we were able to lose at that point. I thought we could beat anybody in the state, and we sure fought for it.”

Weldy said largely, Cassville’s mistakes on the field Friday made a difference.

“Our kids fought, but we made too many mistakes,” he said. “We didn’t tackle well enough. And we talked about it all week, when you play really good teams like Seneca, if you make mistakes, they’re going to punish you for it. And they did, and that’s frustrating. I was hoping that we could fight them and make it a game. We had a good game from week one, but [Friday] was not that way, and that is frustrating all-around.”

Weldy said even though the Wildcats were confident coming in, the fumble recovery for a touchdown on the first offensive play shell shocked the squad.

“That’s a huge swing right there,” he said. “We were hoping to go down there and match the score, and we got into hole we couldn’t get out of. We made a few adjustments, but it wasn’t enough.”

Despite the disappointing outcome, Weldy, Sizemore and Roark are all proud of the season as a whole.

“I’m very proud our guys,” Weldy said. “I’m proud of our seniors. In Week 5, we played Harrisonville, and we were 1-3 and not playing very well. We had a big talk on that Monday before about being at a crossroads in our season. If we continue the road we’re running now, we’re gonna have a really bad season. We’re gonna be team for this forgotten about and probably losing record. Or, we could go on the other road and fix things get better and see what happens — they chose the other way. We rattled off seven victories and start playing really good football, and beat some good teams in the road, some ranked teams. Overall, I think our seniors left the program in better place. That’s what you want your senior group to do, make things better than when they got here, and they did it.”

“We weren’t terrible the last couple seasons, but we never really broke that good team mark,” Sizemore said. “To come together and win that seven straight and do something that hasn’t been done in a while felt amazing. It felt like something we’ve been wanting to do our entire lives. To do it felt really good.”

“[This season] was awesome,” Roark said. “It’s just like, it’s hard to explain, but it was awesome. The locker room was going before every single game. We were hyped up, ready to go every week. That really paid off.”

Sizemore and Roark added they hope they, and their fellow seniors, left the underclassmen with an example for the future.

“I believe we left the underclassmen room to grow,” he said. “I believe that Jaren is a very talented quarterback, one of the best that we’ve had here at Cassville. And I think with another season of development, he is going to be an amazing quarterback, and I think he can lead us to this game and past it. We still have a good offense.”

“I tried to lead the underclassmen pretty good in practices and in school and kind of show them the right way to go, the right path,” Roark said. “I think it kind of wore off on them. And I’m extremely proud of the young ones, Zach Myers is my cousin, and Tyler Hodge is also my cousin, so I have some family in there. I really think they’re going to do great things in the future.”

Weldy said the Wildcats will return a number of good skill players next season, but there will be some positions that need replacing.

“We had some linemen that were really big for us,” he said. “Colt was a huge player for us. So, we’ve got some spots we’ve got to find a way to fix that and replace. But the guys have come back. I hope they’re ready to goo out and work on Monday so we’re ready for next season.”

Against Seneca, Cassville had 238 total yards of offense. Stearns went 8-of-15 passing for 82 yards and two interceptions. Nine total Wildcats ran the football, led by Stearns with 69 yards on 7 attempts. Carlos Barrientos led receivers with 3 catches for 26 yards.

On the season, Stearns was 62-of-99 passing for 1,266 total yards, 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. On the ground, Stearns had 399 yards on 62 carries and 3 scores.

In the backfield, Kamden Beebe led in yardage with 595 on 65 carries and 4 touchdowns. Hughes found the end zone most often, scoring 12 times on 82 carries for 506 yards. Roark, who ended his interview Friday saying he loves his mom, added 448 yards on 55 carries and scored 8 touchdowns, and Masin Bryan ran 81 times for 452 yards and 5 scores.

In the air, Roark led receivers with 885 yards on 37 catches, scoring 11 touchdowns. Mace Bredeson added 11 catches for 247 yards and 2 scores, and Barrientos had 5 catches for 54 yards and 1 touchdown.

In total, the Wildcats had 2,602 yards on the ground and 1,302 through the air.