DUMAS – The first five games of the season taught West Plains and Dumas that nothing that was worth it was going to come easy.
In their District 2-4A Division I opener Friday night at Demon Stadium, they proved it to each other. This time, though there were no moral victories.
There was one in the district column for West Plains at the end of the night which didn’t seem certain for most of the game. The Wolves were able to run out the last 3 minutes and 40 seconds of the clock on offense to hold on for a 24-21 victory which said a lot about both teams.
In competitive terms the game lived up to the hype as both teams proved they were better than their nondistrict records indicate.
“Dumas is well-coached,” said first-year West Plains coach Jeff Lofton, who scored his first district win at the school. “Their kids play hard, they have a lot of pride and you’re not going to just walk in here and run them over. We knew it was going to be a dogfight and that we were going to have to show grit and that we had to do that to get this win.”
The scoreboard certainly doesn’t indicate that the Wolves (3-3, 1-0 in district) ran over the Demons (1-5, 0-1) and the game hung in the balance for the entire 48 minutes. Statistically, though, West Plains ground down the Demons more than running them over, which was a big part of the game plan.
Led by senior Slade Russell, the Wolves ran for 274 yards, which has become a big part of their identity this season. Lofton felt that getting down and dirty on both sides of the ball was the only way to match Dumas.
“The physicality with which the Dumas Demons play you have to at least match and if you don’t succeed you’re going to come up on the wrong end of the stick,” Lofton said. “That was preached. Even in junior high we teach that we’ve got to be the most physical violent team on the field. (The Demons) were a great opponent.”
The game was basically decided during a nine-minute span starting in the third quarter. After forcing a West Plains punt following the second half kickoff, Dumas drove down the field and took a 14-10 lead on a 24-yard scoring run by quarterback Colton Mills, the first of two scoring runs in the second half for Mills.
For the second time on the evening, the Wolves answered a Dumas touchdown with one of their own. Aided by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty which kept a drive alive, West Plains marched down the field wen went ahead 17-14 on Timber Russell’s second scoring pass of the night, a 24-yard throw to Boston Hunt, and the Wolves never trailed again.
After a defensive stop on the next Dumas possession, West Plains went on a ground oriented scoring drive, and just over a minute into the fourth quarter, took a 24-14 lead on Slade Russell’s 5-yard scoring run.
For Russell, it was just another night at the office. He was the workhorse carrying the ball, rolling to a game-high 174 yards on 33 carries.
“I do think I’m ready for it and I think it’s something I’ve been leading up to all year,” Russell said. “I’ve been sort of shorted with my carries in pre-district to save me for district and be the workhorse. Getting over 30 carries is pretty crazy. I haven’t done that in a long time.”
As it turned out, Russell’s scoring run was crucial. Dumas came back and cut the score to 24-21 on a 16-yard scramble by Mills with 3:40 left, and it came down to who could hold the line on either side of the ball to decide the game.
While Russell did the heavy lifting early in the possession, it came down to a third-and-one at the Dumas 32-yard line after the two-minute warning. Cash Lofton, who made his name on the night making plays at linebacker on defense, carried for a two-yard gain and a first down to seal the win.
If there was a possession which epitomized the West Plains offensive approach on the night, that was it.
“Obviously you like breaking off 15 to 25-yard chunks on offense but you know it’s not always going to happen, especially coming here,” Lofton said. “You preach to the kids the last two weeks to be satisfied with four yards a carry. Let’s not have any negative yardage. I’m going to bet on the Wolves every time on fourth and short.”
Territory was hard-fought for the offenses for most of the first half, particularly for West Plains for the first 16 ½ minutes of action. The Wolves took the lead on the last play of the half, Gipson Gnagy’s 33-yard field goal at the halftime gun which gave West Plains a 10-7 lead heading into the locker room.
Dumas came out with a basic game plan offensively, sticking to the ground offensively after taking the opening kickoff. The Demons held the ball for 15 plays before the drive stalled inside the West Plains red zone, but the Wolves blocked Christian Saldana’s 30-yard field goal attempt to hold Dumas scoreless after the Wolves held the ball for over nine minutes.
It was an early statement that the Demons, despite suffering from a myriad of injuries, weren’t going to go down easily.
“We did it with (Palo Duro) when we came out with 18 plays in the second half and scored,” Dumas coach Aaron Dunnam said. “That’s sort of who we are. We’re not extremely flashy. We didn’t come out with three points and it turned out that was the ball game.”
On the third West Plains play from scrimmage, Tate Dunnam somehow slipped in and intercepted a Timber Russell pass in the flat, giving the Demons the ball in great field position. However, West Plains stopped the Demons on downs to take over.
The Wolves then drove to midfield where Dumas held them on downs, setting up the game’s first score, a 22-yard touchdown pass from Mills to Dunnam to make it 7-0 with 7:30 left in the first half.
West Plains finally put together a scoring drive, going 75 yards mostly behind the running of Russell, who ended the drive, ironically, by catching a 22-yard scoring pass from younger brother Timber, a sophomore, to tie the game 7-7 with 3:21 left in the half.
“It felt amazing, especially with it coming from my brother, but we weren’t really working on it too much,” Slade Russell said. “It just that brotherly chemistry when I know it’s coming to me and where he’s going to put it.”
The Wolves then forced the first punt of the evening and took over at their own 14 and put together another impressive drive in the Dumas red zone. Time caught up with them, though, and they had to settle for Gnagy’s field goal to end the half.
While Dumas ran the ball effectively on the opening drive, the Wolves shut the Demons down on the ground after that, except for the scoring runs by Mills. Dumas ran for only 66 yards on the night.
It didn’t help that the Demons went without running back Z’bastian Jara, who ran for over 1,000 yards last season but is now out for the year with an ACL injury. Dumas has been missing as many as nine starters this season due to injury, but still was in the game until the final minutes.
“I thought our kids played really, really hard,” Dunnam said. “They played tough all night long. We had an opportunity to win there in the end if we could get our defense off the field and get a stop. It’s pretty inspiring to watch our kids after what we’ve been through this year.”
Photo gallery by Joe Garcia III:
