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Portageville Bulldogs now 2-2 with win over Chaffee
CHAFFEE, Mo. — In Friday night’s match up between the Chaffee Red Devils, the Portageville Bulldogs took the Red Devils to the Bone Yard. There is no question that Portageville quarterback Connor Barham has confidence in his receiving corp.
Barham connected with Sam Riggs and Jared Crafton nine times in the game, as both receivers finished with a combined 224 yards receiving. Riggs caught seven passes for 123 yards, while Crafton snagged four passes for 101 yards.
Bub Lance and Terry Kirkwood each had impactful games as well.
Lance caught three passes for 58 yards and one touchdown, while Kirkwood hauled in four catches for 59 yards and one score as well.
“He and Sam and Jared and Bub, and Terry didn’t have as many catches tonight, but the good thing about them is in the past, we’ve been kind of a two-receiver dominant team,” Portageville head coach Jeff Bullock said. “This year, we’ve got four kids that are capable of making plays. When they run the right routes and don’t get too caught up, they’re a good group. They’ve been friends their whole lives, and you can tell they play that way.”
Barham threw four touchdown passes in the game. Crafton caught two of them — both in the second quarter.
The game, though, did not start out in the Bulldogs favor, as Chaffee was able to execute early.
After Chaffee did not convert on its first drive of the game, Barham made one of his few mistakes of the game.
Chaffee’s Breven Yarbro read the play correctly, as he intercepted Barham and took it right to the house for a 25-yard interception return.
Barham was intercepted twice in the game — both of them coming on the first three pass attempts of the game.
Even though Barham threw two of his first three passes to the other team, Bullock said that he stayed poised and knew what to do.
“We understand the risk of what we do,” Bullock said. “You know, on the first interception, I think our receiver didn’t run the route, he ran it deeper than he was supposed to and they had the Yarbro kid, who’s just a really good player, just sitting out there, squatting and waiting to see if we come.
“Again, their coaches get credit for scouting us, and they knew what we were going to try and do and he was there and like I said, we made a little bit of a misread between our two guys, but again, a lot of credit goes to Chaffee. The good thing is, a kid like Connor is going to get over it real quick. He’s got a short-term memory, let’s come back and throw it again and see what happens.”
Getting over his early mistakes was what he did, as Barham torched the Red Devils for 373 yards.
For Chaffee, ill-advised mistakes hurt them the most.
The Red Devils finished with seven penalties for a total of 60 yards.
“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Chaffee head coach Terry Flannigan said. “Tell the boys; there were five, six, seven plays a game that was going to beat you, if you don’t play every down hard. You know you got to be smart, and we went out there in the first half and shot ourselves in the foot. We probably could have had a score or two that half, and we come out of the second half and then shoot ourselves in the foot again. This group here, a lot of inexperience. They work hard; hopefully, we’ll keep getting a little bit better. Portageville can wing the thing around, that’s for sure.”
One thing that the Bulldogs did have trouble stopping and a positive to take away from the Chaffee side, is the run game.
Dalton Wilson was a workhorse for the Red Devils and tried to get them back in the game. He had 29 carries for 61 yards in the game.
With inexperience across the field, Flannigan knows that his team will need to continue to have effective running games, especially with a new signal-caller.
In Week 5, Portageville (2-2) travels to Caruthersville. Chaffee (1-3) faces Scott City in a SEMO West matchup.