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ST. LOUIS -- For two straight years Cardinal Ritter had put a damper on Sikeston's season.
Two years ago Ritter ended Sikeston's undefeated season with a come from behind victory. Then last year the Lions held the Bulldogs to its lowest offensive output of the season in a 20-0 loss.
But on Friday night the Bulldogs got a little payback, defeating the Lions 20-0 on Ritter's Senior Night in St. Louis.
"It's a big win for a lot of reasons," Sikeston coach Kent Gibbs said. "It's a big win because we didn't play very good last year and they got after us and have beaten us two years in a row. It's a long trip. You're kind of out of your element. It gives us momentum going into the district."
Sikeston will now head into the district playoffs with a winning streak and home-field advantage in the first round of Class 4, Distict 1 against Farmington on Friday.
After Friday's game, the Bulldogs were all smiles with its second win in as many weeks against a St. Louis school, beating Soldan 30-14 two weeks ago.
"It's put us back on a winning streak -- I'm feeling pretty good right now," Sikeston junior running back Victwon Riley said.
Riley should be feeling good as he topped the 100-yard mark for the third time this season, rushing for a game-high 135 yards on 25 carries and a touchdown.
Backfield mate Earnest Fobbs also topped the century mark for the fourth time, finishing with 120 yards rushing on 18 carries and a TD.
All-the-while the Bulldog defense continued its stellar play the last two weeks, posting its first shutout of the season and limiting the Lions to 114 yards of total offense.
"I felt like we played a complete ballgame offensively and defensively," Gibbs said. "We didn't do everything right but we hung in there defensively until our offense got clicking. We just kept stopping them and kept stopping them and kept stopping them and then our offense got clicking and kind of took the game over. Another big thing is we didn't allow any big plays on special teams which we thought was going to be a key coming into the game."
Sikeston (5-4) has experimented with a new offense the last three weeks, employing a double-wing, double-tight set in an effort to use ball-control and grind out long drives.
The Bulldogs used it exclusively in defeating Soldan, but it was slowed down against Ritter on Friday. When that happened, Gibbs went back to the normal spread offense which proved to be the difference in the game.
"You've got to figure people will start scheming what we're doing after they saw it on tape and (Ritter) did a good job scheming us," Gibbs said. "They were basically knocking the feet of our pullers out which is something that people will do in that offense. And we don't have enough other stuff with it to be real honest about it. We felt like early on we wanted to go to the tight and maybe try to run the ball at them, pound them a little bit and maybe get them tired -- they had a lot of kids going both ways. If it didn't work out we'd go to our spread and that's exactly what we did."
After a scoreless first quarter, the Bulldogs went to the spread and began gashing the Lions, marching 60 yards on nine plays with Riley scoring on a 16-yard touchdown run up the gut to lead 7-0 with 2:01 left in the half.
Sikeston held the Lions to a three-and-out on the ensuing drive and gave themselves one last shot at striking before halftime, but Fobbs was tackled at the 10-yard line after a 30-yard reception from Nathan Hampton to end the half.
In the third quarter, after stopping the Lions on downs following a fake punt, the Bulldogs drove into the red zone, but Hampton's 29-yard field goal attempt was blocked.
Both teams traded punts until the Bulldogs closed the quarter with a flurry. With seconds remaining, Gibbs called timeout to discuss a play on 4th-and-2. When the team came back out, Fobbs took the pitch to the left, cut back inside and then to the outside and ran untouched down the sideline for a 39-yard touchdown to give the Bulldogs a 14-0 lead with five seconds remaining in the third quarter.
It was perfectly executed by all parties involved in the play.
"It was outside zone and it was something we'd ran once in the first half for good yardage and felt like it was something we wanted to come back to," Gibbs said. "Earnest made a real good cut and had some good blocking on the edge and he got down the sideline. We did well up front and did well on the edge and Earnest did a good job of reading it and went down and scored."
The defense continued to stifle the Lions, holding them on downs on the ensuing drive which led to another Bulldog scoring drive. This time the Bulldogs found paydirt when Hampton hit Donnell Cobb with a diving 6-yard touchdown reception along the sideline in the end zone to lead 20-0 with 7:52 left in the game.
It was solid all-around game for Hampton and his receivers. The junior quarterback threw for 83 yards, completing 7 of 10 passes.
Fobbs led the way with three catches for 53 yards. Cobb added three catches for 23 yards and Corbyn Blissett had just one reception, but it was a clutch diving catch on 3rd-and-6 while falling out of bounds to keep a scoring drive alive in the third quarter.
"Nathan does a good job of throwing it and our receivers have gotten better at getting loose, number one, and also catching it, number two," Gibbs said. "Their routes have gotten better. You've got to have time to throw and he got protection and had time to throw it. They all contributed and that's what a team does. All three of those guys had several very nice catches."
The Bulldog defense did the rest, pitching the shutout the rest of the way and not allowing a first down in the second half until the Lions finally moved the chains with a minute left in the game.
"We told them at halftime, 'don't go out to play not to lose. Go out and be aggressive and keep playing to win. If you don't give up big plays they won't score,'" Gibbs said. "I think what you saw was a lot of kids running to the football tonight. For the most part, except towards the end of the game, we tackled really well."
Ritter only managed 96 yards rushing.
"They played a lot tougher," Ritter coach Rolando Merriweather said. "We reversed roles. Last year and the two years previous, we played them tough and came out on top. They caught us this year. We weren't mentally ready to play and Sikeston was and they did great."
The Bulldogs finished with 333 total yards, including 250 yards rushing.
"Playing in the tight it makes everybody aggressive and then we bring it out into the spread and it opens things up," Riley said. "In the tight the linemen are getting aggressive and opening holes and us running backs are just hitting them. Coach said we just need to get at least three yards but we get what we can get."
Now the Bulldogs will set its sights on Farmington, a team they defeated 14-13 in a thriller in Week 5. Sikeston will be attempting to win its first district playoff game since 2012 when they beat Perryville 71-7 in the first round.
"We think we're getting better every week and every day," Gibbs said. "We had a great week of practice this week. We had a lot of enthusiasm and really had fun in practice. Whoever we get, Farmington or whoever, we've just got to be ready to go and hope we get a good crowd to come out and support us and give us a chance to see if we can win a district playoff game."
Sikeston 0 7 7 6 -- 20
Cardinal Ritter 0 0 0 0 -- 0
Second Quarter
S -- Victwon Riley 16 run (Nathan Hampton kick), 2:01
Third Quarter
S -- Earnest Fobbs 39 run (Hampton kick), 0:05
Fourth Quarter
S -- Donnell Cobb 6 pass from Hampton (kick failed), 7:52
__TEAM STATISTICS__
S C
First Downs 13 4
Total yards 333 114
Rushes-yards 47-250 34-96
Passing yards 83 18
Comp.-Att.-Int. 7-10-0 2-8-0
Fumbles-lost 2-1 1-0
Penalties-yards 5-33 9-70
__INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS__
Rushing -- Sikeston, Victwon Riley 25-135, Earnest Fobbs 18-120, Jason Moore 2-8, Nathan Hampton 2-(-13). Cardinal Ritter, Naeem Moore 12-56, Jaylon McLemore 10-34, Jared Price 7-16, Rickey Johnson 1-2, Terrell Wess 4-(-12).
Passing -- Sikeston, Nathan Hampton 7-10-0 83. Cardinal Ritter, Terrell Wess 2-8-0 18.
Receiving -- Sikeston, Earnest Fobbs 3-53, Donnell Cobb 3-23, Corbyn Blissett 1-7. Cardinal Ritter, Eric Brice 2-18.