For the first time since 2020, the Cassville football team has a shot at the district championship.

The Wildcats played a controlling, physical contest against Mt. Vernon on Friday in the Class 3, District 6 semifinals, leaving Wildcat Stadium with a 27-14 victory and berth into the title bout against Class 3 No. 2-ranked Seneca, which has finished Class 3 runner-up the last two seasons.

Clay Weldy, Cassville football coach, said looking back to the start of the season, he’s proud of how far his team has come.

“Those first weeks were kind of rough,” he said. “We were struggling, and looking at where we’re at now and the progression of our team — we’ve won some games. The last two weeks, we had some bigger victories, and we knew it would be a tough game [against Mt. Vernon]. It’s always tough to beat somebody twice, especially a conference opponent. I’m not sure earlier in the year we would have won that type of game, but now we’re to the point we’re playing well with a lot of confidence and found a way to win.”

Andon Goutney, senior defensive back and running back, said the result vindicated the Wildcats’ hard work at practice that week.

“We’ve been working hard and had a good week of practice, like the last couple weeks,” he said. “We’ve had some weird Tuesday practices, but Tuesday was really good this week, and we came ready to play. We heard they were talking a little bit of stuff and their coach wanted to see us again, so we were fired up. I feel like we stepped up and played even better than we should. They hit some plays on the first drive, but I think we were the most physical team after.”

Cassville scored on three first-half drives and added a key fourth-quarter touchdown to defeat the Mountaineers.

Mount Vernon opened the game with a drive to the Cassville 5-yard line, finishing with a dive to take a 7-0 lead with 10:08 left in the first quarter. The Wildcats answered with a 75-yard drive, capped by a 12-yard run by Easton Hughes to tie the game 7-7 with 7:20 remaining in the first.

Cassville took the lead early in the second quarter. After extending a drive into the red zone, Kamden Beebe dragged tacklers over the goal line for a 6-yard touchdown. The extra point was blocked, but the Wildcats led for the first time in the game, 13-7. Cassville added to the lead nearly 4 minutes later, when Hughes broke loose for a first down at the Mount Vernon 24-yard line, and later finished the series with a 10-yard touchdown run at the pylon. A keeper on the conversion made it 21-7 with 6:42 left in the second quarter.

Mount Vernon drove inside Cassville territory late in the half before fumbling, and the Wildcats went into the break up 21-7.

The Mountaineers cut the deficit late in the third quarter. After converting multiple third and fourth downs, the Mountaineers scored on a 3-yard pass in the middle of the end zone, making it 21-14 with 2:23 left in the third.

Cassville answered on the next extended drive. Hughes and Beebe moved the ball into Mount Vernon territory, and on the first play of the fourth quarter, Colton Roark took a pitch left for a 17-yard score. The extra-point attempt missed, but Cassville pulled ahead, 27-14.

Mount Vernon drove across midfield on the ensuing possession, but Goutney intercepted a long pass down the home sideline. Cassville then kept the ball on the ground behind Hughes, Masin Bryan and quarterback Jaren Stearns to drain more than 6 minutes off the clock. The Wildcats drove inside the 1-yard line, but opted to kneel out the clock and preserve the victory.

Weldy said the Mountaineers were playing well coming into the game, and he expected a close contest.

“Our kids just fought, and fought, and fought, and we were more physical at times,” he said. “It was a physical game, and we found a way to score when we needed to. The first drive in the second half, we had good field position and I made a really bad play call and we threw a pick. I had to tell myself personally to be more patient. We kind of bled the clock and ran the ball at them, and defensively, we settled in and did a really good job.”

Goutney said his interception, which set up the clock-milking drive, was all too easy in the moment.

“I saw the quarterback look over my way and I checked my guy, and I looked back over and he threw it right to me. It made my job really easy there, probably the easiest interception I could have gotten.”

Goutney said the ensuing drive was the epitome of Cassville football, physical and controlled.

“That’s what coach has been preaching since I was a freshman, and now I’m a senior, but he always talks about being the more physical team,” he said. “We like to run the ball more and throw when we want to or need to. Our running backs ran really hard tonight.”

Weldy said the drive was physical and a grind.

“That’s the thing about us,” he said. “We can hit big plays, but we can also line up and be physical and eat the clock away. Our kids did that when we needed to, and I was proud of them for it.”

Stat-wise, Stearns went 4-for-8 through the air for 73 yards and had 2 interceptions, adding 35 yards on the ground on 4 attempts. Hughes led rushers with 131 yards on 18 carries and 2 scores. Beebe had 64 yards on 10 carries and a score, and Bryan had 52 yards on 14 carries. Roark carried 3 times for 29 yards and a score, and he caught 2 passes for 37 yards. Cassville had 420 total yards of offense, while Mt. Vernon produced 206.

Defensively, Tristan Thompson and Chance Freed led with 5 tackles apiece, and Van Thang and Hughes had 4 each. Thompson led in assists with 6, and he and Thang each had 2 sacks.

The Wildcats (8-3), seeded No. 2 in the district, head to Seneca on Friday for the championship, facing a 9-1 Indians’ squad that ousted East Newton, 56-21, in the other semifinal after a bye week as the district No. 1 seed.

The teams met in the season opener at Wildcat Stadium on Aug. 29, with the Indians claiming a 33-27 win. The Wildcats scored with under 2 minutes remaining in the game, but Seneca recovered an onside kick attempt and ran out the clock.

Weldy said just like Cassville, Seneca is a different team now than in Week 1.

“We played them here at home, and we’ll have to play them there Friday, and Seneca is a tough place to play,” he said. “They also have that pedigree and have been in the state championship game the past couple years. Those kids have all made deep runs, so it will be a tough task.

“Our kids are fired up to go play them again, but it will be tough. It’s going to be a good environment, and a fun one.”

Goutney said for the players, the rematch has been 10 weeks coming.

“We’ve wanted to play them again since that first week because we were missing three of our main guys on defense,” he said. “We try to focus on each week and getting the job done so we can get back to them. We haven’t overlooked other teams, and I think we did a good job of that this week. Now, we’re ready to go play Seneca, and I think it’s going to be a good game.”

The Indians average 47.1 points per game to Cassville’s 34, and allow 20.6 per game to Cassville’s 22.7. The only team Seneca beat this season that Cassville did not was McDonald County, and the Indians carry a six-game win streak over the Wildcats — dating back to 2020 — into the contest.

Kickoff on Friday is at 7 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online at https://www.mshsaa.org/ Tickets.aspx, and the game will be live streamed at https://mshsaa. tv/.