Cayden Douglas had another big week running the football for Van-Far.
The problem is, so did Montgomery County’s Lafe McCurdy. Douglas followed three touchdowns the previous week with four …
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Cayden Douglas had another big week running the football for Van-Far.
The problem is, so did Montgomery County’s Lafe McCurdy. Douglas followed three touchdowns the previous week with four touchdowns and 218 yards on 22 carries, and McCurdy ran for six touchdowns for Van-Far to lose 62-30 on Friday at home.
Douglas ran for a 47-yard touchdown on the second play from scrimmage to put Van-Far (1-4) ahead 8-0. Montgomery County (3-2) then scored the next 24 points and continued to impose its will at the line of scrimmage.
“It’s just doing their assignments,” Gibson said. “We played a little bit of a different defense this week. We packed the box more this week than we have. It didn’t work. We changed it up at halftime, and it seemed to work a little better.”
Montgomery County took a 48-14 lead at halftime. It was already the most Van-Far has allowed in a game this season and a season-high in scoring for the Wildcats.
McCurdy sometimes went untouched as he weaved through the line for long runs. He had runs of 68 and 42 yards in the first half, but those distances were cut down in the second half.
“It’s just fundamentals,” Gibson said when asked how Van-Far can make more contact at the line. “They start getting tired, and they get blocked. They’ve got to keep the pad levels down and just get off the ball.”
Gibson said part of the struggle was because Van-Far lost lineman Bryson Poindexter to an elbow injury early in the game. It happened on McCurdy’s and Montgomery County’s first touchdown of the game.
“When you lose one guy, we’ve got to bring Bryce (Reading) down to tackle and then we have a new guy playing end,” Gibson said. “It’s a house of cards.”
Gibson added Van-Far has three freshmen starting on both sides of the ball on a more inexperienced roster for the Indians. Still, he said coaches have to be better at preparing the kids whenever injuries happen because Van-Far already has a smaller roster.
It’s for that reason that Gibson is proud of his offense for scoring 30 points against a Class 2 school. It’s the second straight week the Indians have scored at least 30 points.
The junior Douglas had wanted to get more experience prior to this season, but injuries limited his playing time the first two years. Gibson said Douglas could’ve been a 2,000-yard running back already, but he is happy he is healthy now.
“He realizes this is his junior year, and he missed his whole sophomore year,” Gibson said. “It was just a shame, but God has a plan and you’ve got to make the best of it.”
Douglas ran for touchdowns of 41 yards and 61 yards in the second half to secure his fourth straight 150-yard game and second straight 200-yard game. He ran for 216 yards and three touchdowns in the prior week.
On a lot of his runs against Montgomery County, Douglas displayed the aforementioned resilience in breaking tackles and refusing to go down.
“It’s the kind of athlete he is, he does not go down,” Gibson said. “Sometimes it’s his demise as he goes backwards by not going down and they eventually get him down, but he’s just a tremendous running back. It showed tonight.”
Douglas led on defense with eight tackles, and Reading had 6.5 tackles.
Van-Far hosts Eastern Missouri Conference foe Bowling Green (3-2) at 7 p.m. Friday. The Indians will defend the Wagon Wheel trophy it won for the first time since 2005 and will try to do it on Homecoming.
“We’ve going to have to practice with some guys in different spots,” Gibson said. “We’ve got to get those guys ready to go in different positions and play our best game.”
