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East Prairie falls short in quest for title, 28-14
Eagles finish season at 6-4
MALDEN -- The Malden Greenwave pulled off what some considered an upset on Thursday evening as they defeated the district favorite East Prairie Eagles 28-14 in front of the home crowd. For the Eagles, a slim margin of error cost the squad a chance at the state playoffs as they could've lost by only one point and still taken second in the district, therefore earning a bid to play in November.
Instead, the 6-4 East Prairie Eagles ended the year in the final regular season game as Raphael Jones and the Greenwave pulled ahead early and maintained a 14-point lead until the Eagles tied it at 14 at the end of the third quarter.
Malden's first two scores came right out of the gate in the first quarter as Dillion Criglar caught at 41-yard pass from Andy Matthews at 6:15. The extra point kick failed, but less than a minute later Ryan Cain scooped up a fumble by East Prairie and ran it back 45 yards for the score. Jones added the two-point conversion run and just like that Malden was up 14-0.
In the second quarter the Eagles finally got on the board as MC Williams rushed in from three yards out and added the extra point kick immediately following. At the break it was Malden 14, East Prairie 7.
The Greenwave received the kick to open the second half but Matthews, the kick returner, grabbed the facemask of an Eagle defender and racked up a 15-yard penalty to start the opening drive. Three plays later and the Greenwave were forced to punt the ball back to their opponent.
Nine plays later the Eagles coughed up the ball on a fumble, but Malden couldn't capitalize once again sending the ball back through the air to East Prairie. This time, Williams made the most of the Eagle drive, and after five plays into the drive he ran in from 29 yards out as time expired in the third quarter. After the successful extra point, the score was knotted at 14 apiece.
Opening the fourth quarter was the kickoff from East Prairie, and Criglar busted loose near the end zone and brought the kickoff back around 40 yards before he was tackled by an Eagle defender. Criglar had one man left before he would have been the last man standing between himself and the end zone.
Malden capitalized on the good field position however, and after controlling the clock for over 4:30, the Greenwave scored on the tenth play of the drive as quarterback Kaleb Loughary snuck in from one yard out at 7:24. Svein Hansen added the extra point kick leaving the score 21-14 in favor of the home team.
Malden then drove across midfield, but failed to connect on a pass from Matthews, setting up a punt from near the 50-yard line.
On the ensuing possession the Eagles lost a yard on the first carry from Williams, saw Conner Scott stopped near the line of scrimmage and an unsuccessful third down pass by Scott to set-up a fourth-and-11 from their own 14. The punt was blocked by Cain leaving the Greenwave to set-up with the ball around the 27-yard line.
Jones was then stopped on the line of scrimmage, but on the second play Malden ran a reverse pass that ended up in the arms of Jordan McMunn right in the front corner of the endzone for the touchdown. Hansen added the extra point before being hit by East Prairie defenders to set-up a shorter kick on the kick-off due to the penalty.
On the first play from scrimmage the Eagle season came to a halt as Scott threw a lateral pass to Jordan Jarrett who then threw an interception to Malden's Travis Gregory. The Greenwave downed the ball on the next snap, taking the victory 28-14.
East Prairie head coach Jason Aycock didn't consider the season as a loss following the upset. He said that the Greenwave just came ready to play against the Eagles on Thursday.
"My hat's off to Malden," said Aycock. "They're starting to play good together at the right time. I feel like these past two games that we haven't played up to our potential. If you go back and look at this game we made a couple of key mistakes in the first half with a big fumble that they returned for a touchdown, but the bottom line is that Malden outplayed us tonight."
Jones finished the night with 225 yards rushing on 33 carries for the Greenwave, but the thing that hurt the Eagles was the number of turnovers. East Prairie had five turnovers on the night to Malden's four, but the five came at costly times during the contest for the Eagles.
Williams was once again the stat leader for East Prairie as he has been in all 10 games of his senior campaign. He racked up 201 yards on 40 carries, including two touchdown runs in the loss.
"I tell anybody, when you've got horses, you ride them," he said about Williams' performance. "We've got two of our best offensive linemen on the right side and we've got MC (Williams) running to the right side. When you've got horses you run behind them. When you've got a horse in the backfield you get on his back and ride it. That's what we did."
Malden head coach Gary Blaylock said that they finally figured out that East Prairie wasn't changing their game plan, which provided Williams most of his yardage rushing to the right side of the field.
"We tried to get at least two guys on him (Williams) every play," said Blaylock. "We just attacked. We've been preaching attack."
Aycock said that they relied on Williams' running attack as long as they could to provide the offense, much like they did all year long.
"You've got to have that one play that you can hang your hat on when nothing else is working -- you know that play is going to work," he added. "The play was working all night long, gaining five and 10 yards a pop. But, when we got down by the goal line we were coughing it up. We just made too many turnovers."
Williams is one of the eight East Prairie seniors that played his last high school game on Thursday. The Eagles have a good mix of young talent returning next season and Aycock said that they have a lot to build upon for the future.
"I think we had a great season," Aycock said. "These kids have nothing to hang their heads about. They battled through some adversity and played well together all year. They won six ballgames and I feel like they have a lot of good memories from this season. I feel bad for the seniors because this is a good group of seniors we have."
The Caruthersville Tigers actually took home the district title by defeating the Charleston Bluejays on Thursday evening 43-6, leaving Malden with a second place finish by defeating East Prairie head-to-head. The Tigers will now play host to Crystal City on Wednesday evening while Malden heads to Scotty City on Wednesday as well.