Barton, defense sink Pirates

Kingfisher’s ground game finally found its legs, its defense remained stingy and the Yellowjackets officially have a winning streak.

Dallen Barton ran for 152 yards and his first four touchdowns of the season and helped the defense pitch a shutout Friday in a 38-0 win at Mannford.

After starting the year 0-4, KHS is now 2-4 overall and 2-1 in District 3A-1 contests.

“That was our most complete effort of the season,” said KHS coach Jeff Myers. “Granted, we’re going to see much tougher tests down the road, but we saw the kind of competitiveness tonight that we weren’t necessarily seeing before.”

Myers was referring more specifically to the 20-17 overtime loss to Chisholm in Week 2 of the season, the only head scratcher of the Jackets’ defeats to start the season.

“There were times I didn’t see us have a certain level of competitiveness that it takes to play this game,” Myers said. “That wasn’t the case tonight. We played the way I know we’re capable.”

And - for the first time this season - the Jackets did it for two halves.

It started early as defensive end Daniel Guerrero blew past his blocker to strip sack Pirate quarterback Max Moore.

It was reminiscent of a week ago when Jake Reagan did the same thing as Guerrero was able to recover the fumble.

This week, however, Guerrero cleaned up the takeaway all by himself, giving KHS possession at the Mannford 13.

On Kingfisher’s very first offensive snap, Barton went untouched into the end zone as the Jackets took a 7-0 lead just over a minute into the game.

Coming into the night, Barton had carried the ball 71 times this season and had nary a touchdown to show for it. He also was averaging only 2.32 yards per carry.

Both of those stats saw big increases by the end of the evening.

He got his second TD on a 1-yard plunge with 3:06 to go in the first.

That, too, was set up by a Guerrero fumble recovery, this one setting up the Jackets at the Mannford 47.

Later in the second, Guerrero got his paws on a Moore pass, batting it to the ground and leading to a punt.

The Jackets turned that next possession into a 23yard field goal by Jake Sisk and a 17-0 lead with 4:47 to play in the first half.

They got one more chance to score before the end of the half and took advantage.

The Jackets marched 75 yards in just 1:35, aided by a 45-yard pass from Jhett Birdwell to Santiago Ortega.

Birdwell finished the drive with a 1-yard QB sneak with just one second left in the half.

The Jackets were actually able to score two touchdowns in 13 seconds of game time.

The team deferred receiving the kickoff until the second half after winning the coin toss.

On the first play of the third, Barton raced for a 60yard touchdown run, his biggest gain of the season.

He added a 14-yard score with 18 seconds to go in the third, essentially ending his night.

And it was a good one. Barton ran 14 times for 152 yards after managing just 165 yards in the previous five games.

His average yards per carry increased by 1.4.

“It was great to see him have that kind of night,” Myers said. “He’s had to work for every inch he’s gained this year, so the line did a much better job tonight opening things up for him.” For one of the few times this season, the Jackets’ starting lineup remained the same up front.

Robert Barnett got his second straight start at center after it was learned earlier in the week that Tanner Parker was done for the season with a Grade 2 MCL tear. Barnett has now played three positions on the offensive line.

Bert Haag was at left tackle and Landon Rempe at left guard while Diego Munoz and Jose Santoyo were the right guard and tackle, respectively.

They led the way to the Jackets rushing for 261 yards and an average of 7.5 per carry.

Overall, KHS collected a season-high 364 yards, more than double their average coming in.

Meanwhile, the defense limited what was a sturdy ground game for the Pirates through their first five games.

The team averaged right at 174 rushing yards a game and sophomore Brayden Rodriguez 128 yards by himself.

Mannford managed only 148 total yards, with just 69 coming on the ground.

Rodriguez was held to 44 yards on 15 attempts.

“We did a great job of shutting down the running lanes inside and pursuing to the outside,” Myers said. “And we didn’t miss many tackles.”

Barton, Jairo Velarde and Ethan Karcher had eight tackles apiece.

Santoyo added seven stops while Ortega, Hunter Delozier and Jake Reagan were in on six apiece.

Guerrero was disruptive even when not getting a tackle or a takeaway and had finished his night with five.

The Jackets gave up 21 first-half points to Perkins- Tryon in their district opener in Week 4.

In the five halves - 10 quarters - since then, only six total points have been surrendered.

“With just a few exceptions all season long, our defense has been really good and it’s kept us in every game,” Myers said. “We’ve said all along that we just needed to get things going on offense and string together several quarters of complementary football.

“We finally did that at Mannford and you saw the result.”

Notes:

• If there’s one negative from the night, it was penalties. The Jackets were flagged 10 times for 90 yards…most of them holding calls. “We’ve got to clean that up this week,” Myers said.

• After starting 0-4 overall and 0-1 in the district, KHS still controls its own destiny in regards to hosting a playoff game. If they can win out, the Jackets would be no worse than district runner-up to Perkins-Tryon, which already has a win over KHS and Metro Christian.

• The destiny controlling starts this week at Metro Christian in Tulsa. The Patriots were the district champs last year when they beat KHS 42-7 en route to reaching the state championship game where they lost to Heritage Hall.

• Metro Christian is currently 4-2 and 2-1. The losses were 21-7 to Perkins two weeks ago and 24-7 to Class 4A contender Poteau in Week 2. The Patriots beat McLoud 34-13 last week.