Hinton hinders Cashion, but can’t stop Wildcat win streak
CASHION DEFENDERS Joey Wilson (56), Kaleb Duran (13), Bryce Burke (9) and Jake Branson (22) work to bring down Hinton’s Levi Taylor during last Friday night’s victory. The Comets slowed the pace in order to keep Cashion’s offense off the field as mu
Hinton nearly carried out the perfect game plan to upset Cashion last week. Nearly.
The visiting Comets did their best to ruin Cashion’s senior night, but the home team finally mustered a pair of second-half touchdowns to escape with a 12-0 victory.
Hinton’s defensive scheme dared Cashion to run the ball. On offense, the Comets mostly kept it on the ground and worked the play clock to just a few seconds.
“It was a good plan,” Shackelford said. “It makes it hard to score when you don’t get the ball much, turn it over and can’t score in the red zone.”
The miscues happened in the first half.
Cashion’s Ben Harman was picked off twice and at least two more drives ended with turnovers on downs in the red zone.
The teams entered the locker room scoreless.
“We just didn’t execute,” Shackelford said of the first half.
The second half was a lot of the same, at least for the Hinton offense.
“They worked the clock down to two seconds before they’d snap it,” Shackelford said. “And they’d try to get their three yards.”
On average, they fell just short.
Hinton ran it 36 times for 106 yards, an average of 2.9 per attempt.
Still, it kept Cashion’s offense on the sideline for large chunks.
The Wildcats had just two second-half possessions.
Both ended with Harman TD runs.
One came from 10 yards out in the third quarter and the second one from 14 yards in the fourth.
The Comets did a stellar job of bottling him up otherwise.
Harman netted 18 yards on 10 carries. He was 11 of 20 for 143 yards through the air. Mason Manning was his top target with six catches for 83 yards.
But it was Nick Nabavi who got a bulk of the workload for the Cashion offense.
He toted it 20 times for 157 yards, including a long of 39 yards.
Nabavi also delivered a team-high eight tackles.
Bryce Burke added seven stops for a defense that allowed only 163 total yards.
The win was Cashion’s sixth straight.
The Wildcats are 6-1 overall and 3-0 in District A-3.
They get this week off before playing Ulysses (Kan.) on the Northwestern Oklahoma State University campus on Oct. 22.
“It’s a great time for us to have a week off,” Shackelford said. “We are banged up and need to try and figure some things out.”
Cashion returns to district action Oct. 29 at Tonkawa. The Bucs are currently the only other A-3 team without a district loss.