Lamar fends off Cassville in state-ranked battle

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In a battle of undefeated, third-ranked teams in their respective classes, Lamar High School — No. 3 in Class 2 — was able to break a second half tie with an 8-yard touchdown run to down the hosts on Friday night at Cassville High School.

The Wildcats were ranked third in Class 3. Both teams came into play at 5-0 and looking to put themselves in the driver's seat for a Big 8 Conference championship.

Lamar (6-0) did that with Terren Williams' touchdown run and defensive stops in the final 3:41 of the game.

The Tigers were backed up against a wall after allowing the Wildcats to tie the score at 21 apiece, erasing a 14-point lead.

Facing third and 10 after two incomplete passes to start the next drive after the hosts tied the score, Lamar trusted in Clayton Powell's arm and sent wide receiver Brayden Wolfe on a double move on the outside.

Powell hit Wolfe in stride and took the pass 63 yards into enemy territory to revive the Tigers. Three plays later, Williams was running in the game-winning touchdown.

"Clayton (Powell) and Brayden (Wolfe) have been playing catch together a long time. Brayden's been a big playmaker for us all season long and Cassville did a really good job of limiting his impact for sure in the first half and third quarter," Lamar head coach Jared Beshore said. "I just trusted my guys at that point and time."

Beshore said he went with his "gut" on the play call against single man-to-man coverage on the outside against his speedy athlete. He added that Powell "made a beautiful pass."

The pass was in the air for about 20 yards and then Wolfe sprinted the rest of the way as he caught the pass in stride. He made Cassville's safety Carlos Barrientos miss initially and was eventually taken down at the 17 of the Wildcats.

"I just knew we had to get it 10 yards and he (coach Beshore) called a sucker route. I knew with how the corners were playing it was going to end up hitting," Powell said.

"This is big. … We had a lot of energy coming into this game. Amazing feeling to come out with the win and be the only undefeated team left in the Big 8," Martin said.

The game was slow moving early on as neither team could get much going. It was a scoreless battle through one quarter of play.

But Lamar got something going through its special teams.

Senior lineman Logan Martin was able to block a punt in the second quarter. The ball caromed off his arm and toward the sideline where Williams scooped it up and ran it 14 yards into the end zone to get the Tigers on the board with 8:51 left before halftime.

"It wasn't necessarily what I was supposed to do. … We had a call where I don't go block the punt. But it was open, so I went and somehow got a hand on it," Martin said.

That wasn't all the special teams did for the Tigers.

In the first quarter, on Cassville's first drive of the game, the Wildcats sent out the kicking team for a 37-yard field goal. Dade Zajac's kick was blocked.

"I told our guys earlier in the week, these big games don't come down to offense and defense. They come down to a special teams play, a penalty, a turnover and for us tonight, getting a score on special teams was huge," Beshore said. "Coach (Heath) Heckadon does our special teams and makes sure he puts us in position to make special plays."

Powell said the special teams touchdown really sparked him and the rest of the offense.

"It definitely started a spark and ignited us to get going," Powell said. "We came out really slow."

Lamar took a 14-0 lead in the final moments of the first half on a 22-yard touchdown pass from Powell to Williams. The score occurred with just 38 seconds left before halftime.

Cassville (5-1) came out of the locker room and used six plays to go 55 yards and score a touchdown. The score came on a trick play. Quarterback Jaren Stearns tossed the ball to Masin Bryan on a pitch play. But Bryan pulled up and launched a ball over the top of the defense to Mace Bredeson.

Bredeson caught the ball in stride at the 10-yard line and raced into the end zone for a 40-yard score to make it 14-7.

Lamar answered with some trickery of its own. Powell hit his receiver Wolfe in the flats just behind the line of scrimmage and the entire defense sucked down to try to stop the athlete, but he stopped and delivered a ball to a wide open Kyler Ison for a 32-yard gain down to the 6. Ison stumbled and fell to the ground after the catch or else he would have strolled in for a score.

Two plays later, Williams was running in a 1-yard score.

Beshore spoke about the coaching battle going blow for blow on trick plays.

"That's the fun chess match of football coaching, right. You get programs that are really well-coached with good staffs, high-level players that you can do things like that with — trick plays are easy when you have a lot of good players," Beshore said.

Cassville answered. This time the Wildcats took nine plays to drive 38 yards and score on a 17-yard touchdown pass from Stearns to Bredeson. Bredeson caught the ball in the flats with no one within 20 yards of him and he raced in for a score. With 20 penalty yards on three penalties, Cassville extended the drive after a 40-yard kick return by Bredeson had it set up in prime position at the Lamar 38.

The score made it 21-14.

After getting Lamar to go three-and-out on the next possession, Cassville had a chance to draw even.

On the fourth play of the drive, the Wildcats struck gold. Stearns hung in the pocket as long as he could and took a shot as he delivered a pass to Bryan up the left side of the field. Bryan reeled it in on the run with defenders around him and rumbled into the end zone a few yards later to tie the game with 7:18 to play.

After Lamar took the lead back, Cassville failed to convert on fourth and short with about two minutes left and then got a stop and got the ball back with 48.7 seconds left. The Wildcats ran out of time before crossing midfield.

Lamar threw the ball a good amount in Friday's contest as Powell attempted a total of 10 passes and Wolfe threw one.

"It definitely makes us more diverse. They can't just guard the run. They've got to cover the pass, and it opens up the run or vice versa," Powell said.

Lamar hosts Mount Vernon High School (3-3) next week for homecoming. The Mountaineers defeated East Newton High School 10-8 on Friday.

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