Kewpie's defense shows well

By looking at the scoreboard in Hickman’s 44-6 loss to No. 3 Rockhurst Friday night, it is impossible to see how well the Kewpie defense played.

At halftime, Rockhurst was cruising with a 24-0 lead despite averaging 24.6 yards of offense per drive. The reason the score was inflated were four Hickman turnovers that gave Rockhurst a short field to work with throughout the first half.

“If it wasn’t for the turnovers it is probably a different ball game,” Rockhurst head coach Tony Severino said. “We got great field position early. We made some mistakes and kept them in the ball game, but we will never fault short fields.”

Giving opponents short fields has been a problem for Hickman in its last two losses. The Kewpies committed four first-half turnovers in a 38-0 loss to Hazelwood Central on Sept. 15. On Friday night, the turnovers paved the way for Rockhurst’s big lead.

“The turnover bugaboo is just following us for some reason,” Hickman coach Jason Wright said. “I don’t know what it is going to take to remedy that. We’ve talked about, addressed it, changed our pregame around a little bit. And we (still) haven’t been able to come out and start from the outset.”

Wright said he felt the Hickman defense was solid under the circumstances.

“I thought, for the most part, our defense hung in there,” Wright said. “I thought that they were flying around and playing spirited.”

Wright said he was told by a Rockhurst coach that the Hickman defense was as good as Rockhurst has seen this season. Severino was impressed with the play of Hickman defenders Chris Mason, Lukas Duncan and Lucas Little.

“Those two defensive ends of theirs and that inside linebacker did a good job of stringing things out and closing up the inside,” Severino said.

Mason said the effort was there for the Kewpies, but that the disadvantage in field position was too much to overcome.

“Coach told us we had good defense, but it didn’t show on the scoreboard because we had a lot of turnovers on (offense),” Mason said.

Field position and ball control are two major keys to a successful football team, and Hickman wide receiver Byron Bundy is growing frustrated with the failure of the Hickman offense to execute in those aspects of the game.

“It’s disappointing,” Bundy said. “We got to value the football. Every game it is the same thing. Turnovers. Every single game. And we still turn the ball over every game.”

Running back Tucker Bounds echoed Bundy’s view.

“We can’t keep making mistakes,” Bounds said. “It didn’t show on the (score)board but our defense held them, and if our offense would have played up to par, it would have been a closer game.”

Wright knows that to be more successful in the future, the Kewpies must execute better in the game’s first 24 minutes.

“Unfortunately, we wait until the second half to get it going,” Wright said. “It is the same play calling. It is not like we are going in to halftime and scheming. We can’t wait until the second half.”

The loss dropped Hickman’s record to 1-4 on the season, while Rockhurst improved to a 4-1 mark.