Linn’s football team earned its first varsity win on Friday, defeating Missouri Military Academy (MMA), 30-0, at Mexico.

As Coach Steve Samson noted last week, travel has been a challenge for the team, which he said resulted in a flat opening to the game.

“We had a 6-0 lead at the half and talked to the guys at halftime,” said Samson. “We talked to the kids about maintaining blocks, you know, making sure you got your steps down, and we’re reading the option. We came out and put 24 points on the board in the second half. We need to start coming out and doing that in the first half. We have to play the whole game, and it goes back to that one block. We played a lot better in the second half, and it was nice to get a shutout, especially in your first varsity win.”

It was a game of firsts for Linn, as the Wildcats had several big plays resulting in touchdowns. Cameron Hoelscher caught a pass from Hunter Bish (3-5 for 81 yards passing) for a 51-yard TD. “MMA was coming downhill hard on the option, so we ran a little take route, and instead of blocking Cameron, he turned it into a go route and was wide open,” said Samson. “Hunter hit him, and Cameron was off to the races. It was a good play, and they executed it very well.”

Bish entered the game for Tyler Wagner, who started but had ankle issues. “Tyler was out last week, and we limped him into practice,” Samson noted. “We’re taping him, and he said he could go, but I don’t think he was very effective. I think in the back of his mind he was favoring his ankle, so, we made a switch.”

Bish and Wagner continue to develop their roles in the option, which Samson said would be a focal point in practice this week ahead of Friday’s game against Fayette. “I think they’re reading the option, but they’re not riding the fullback as long as I want them to,” said Samson. “They need to get the ball deeper on the fullback, like the back to their back hip and right into the front hip, which would make the read man have to take the fullback. Right now, he’s playing both of them, so they’re kind of guessing with him, and they’re right half the time. That’s what’s hurting our offense right now. So, we need to do more of a mesh drill this week to really hammer home the ride-and-decide technique they need to be doing. They need to slow down a little bit more and make sure we get the ride on the fullbacks, which will help out our offense because everything on our offense is geared to the fullback mesh.”

Gus Peters led the team with 86 rushing yards, including a 61-yard sprint along the sideline to about the 2-yard line. Bish took the ball into the end zone on the next play after a keeper after reading the option.

Craig Laughlin added 21 yards on 10 carries, but Linn didn’t get to run the ball much.

“We didn’t have a whole lot of offensive plays because they ran the ball a lot, we ran the ball a lot, and the clock just kept running,” Samson explained. “The game went pretty quick.”

Devin Brandt added 24 yards on three rushes, as Hoelscher had six carries for 22 yards.

Hoelscher scored two TDs, and Bish, Laughlin, and D. Brandt scored one time each.

Through the air, Peters caught two passes for 15 yards, and Trevor Brandt added 15 yards on one catch.

Defensively, Samson said, tackling was better in the second half, but he’s still looking for improvement. “We’ve missed a lot of tackles, but we had a lot of people getting to the ball. We’re going to keep stressing gang-tackling because Fayette’s got a couple of good running backs, so we’re going to have to really contain them.”

Recording tackles were Jake Bish (8), Joe Brandt (5), Jason Greer and D. Brandt (4 each), Xavier Knoll and Wagner (3 apiece), Bobby Winkelman, Laughlin, Connor Knoll, and Landon Brandt (2 each), and Andrew Rotter, Peters, T. Brandt, and Preston Keilholz (1 apiece).

On special teams, Samson quipped the Wildcats were able to work on kickoff coverage, and Keilholz posted another first for the team. “He put one kickoff in the end zone for the first time,” said Samson, noting a favorable bounce and roll saw the ball hit the turf at about the 15 and found its way to the end zone.

While Samson is pleased with the win, he knows it’s only the beginning. “It’s nice to win, but you want to put more than one win on the board,” he added. “We want to win multiple games in a row and start putting stuff together. And we want kids to learn the offense better, so when (opponents) throw a different defense at us, we’re not lost. We can adjust. I told the guys after the game to enjoy the win, but they also knew we had to start over on Monday to get ready for the next game. That’s football. You learn to enjoy it, or reminisce about it, or dwell on it, and then you get back to work.”

Samson added he was pleased with the support Linn fans demonstrated. “We had an excellent group of fans that followed us down, and they sat right behind our bench, so they were loud all night, and I’m just glad we gave them something really good, nice to cheer about.”