Wildcats win, show they still have ‘dudes’
SPRINGFIELD — Last year Te’SeanSmootwastheyoung quarterback aided by talented seniors to throw and hand off to. That teamwon 12 games and reached the Division I regional final. Now he’s a junior and the veteran with an inexperienced cast.
“This 2020 team everybodywas saying theyweren’t that great, nobodyknewwho theywere, thereweren’t no playmakers,” Wildcats coach Maurice Douglass said. “But this is Springfield. We’re still going to have dudes.”
One of those dudes is a senior who had over 1,000 receiving yards last year. But Ben Van Noord is a transfer from Northwestern with no previous experience with Smoot. One of the young dudes is Anthony Brown, a sophomore with little varsity experience. But he has good pass- catching genes. His brother, MikeBrown-Stephens, played for theWildcats and now plays for Minnesota.
Smoot, Van Noord and Brown teamed up for the big plays that sparked theWildcats to a 21-14 season-opening win over Greater Western Ohio Conference rival Wayne on Friday night.
“We’ve got a lot of players that can make plays,” Smoot said. “They can turn nothing into something. It’s good knowing I’ve got different people I can move the ball around to, and they’re all going to make a play.”
After leading 21-7 at halftime, the Wildcats had to hang on as quarterbackCam Fancher almost brought the Warriors all the way back. After Springfield botched the snap on a field-goal attempt, Fancher took his team from its 12 with 1: 43 left to the Springfield 22 with 15 seconds left. He threw to the end zone three times but the Wildcats’ secondary stopped him.
Smoot completed 16 of 27 passes for 226 yards and three touchdowns.
“We knew it was coming,” Wayne coachRoosevelt Mukes said of the big pass plays. “We have to understand the game and not play bump and run. We’ll learn from it.”
Springfield outgained Wayne 329-264. Fancher threwfor 181 yards forWayne had hit top targets RJMukes six times and tight end Elijah Brown five times. TheWarriors, however, had opportunities before the final drive to tie the score, butmistakes, includingsomeof the 10 penalties they committed for 92 yards, puttheminlong thirdand fourth-downsituations.