Ringling bedeviled at Cashion

When Ringling takes the football field, it’s not unusual to see more than 300 rushing yards.

The Blue Devils just aren’t accustomed to it being the other team.

That was the case Friday as Cashion was the one churning out yards on the ground in an 18-6 slugfest of a victory at Maxon Field.

“When we watched film, we thought we might be able to run the ball on them,” Cashion coach Lynn Shackelford said.

He wasn’t wrong. The Wildcats piled up 324 yards on 39 attempts, an average of 8.3 per carry.

That total and that average were boosted on one of the game’s first plays when Kellen Smith broke through for an 80-yard touchdown run.

The visitors got a strong dose of Smith, Rival Fields, Greyson Davis and newcomer Jayden Bolton, who didn’t join the team until Tuesday.

“We moved our offensive line around some and ran some counter scheme we hadn’t used much this year,” Shackelford said. “In the first half, we did a really good job of being patient and trusting the blocking.

“We didn’t trust it as much in the second half and tried to bounce some stuff to the outside, but we were still effective overall.”

The run game also helped set up Smith to be effective with his passes.

He was 7 of 13 for 98 yards and hit Davis with touchdown passes of 9 and 19 yards.

The first of those gave Cashion a 12-0 lead in the second quarter.

Later in the half, Ringling was able to piece together its lone scoring drive of the game and cut its deficit in half.

Cashion took over at its own 40 with 1:11 to play.

Davis and Maxx Higdon combined to put Cashion in business with a 41-yard connection.

After a couple of Cashion penalties, Smith found Davis for the 19-yard score with 12 seconds in the half.

That sequence denied Ringling any chance of momentum.

“They got the ball to start the second half and we stopped them and then we ate a bunch of time off the clock with our drive,” Shackelford said. “Even though we didn’t score, it was still a good drive and we just decided there to bleed out the clock the rest of the game and let our defense win it.”

That unit did its part. Ringling had just 94 rushing yards and 140 total yards.

Cashion managed four takeaways - all interceptions.

Smith had two of them while Higdon and Davis hauled in one apiece.

Kaleb Duran led the team with six tackles.

Shackelford praised his play as well as that of Matthew Stockton up front. He had four stops, but was disruptive to what Ringling attempted to execute.

“Just overall defensively we played so well,” Shackelford said. “(Defensive coordinator) Tony (Wood) had a great plan and the kids did a great job of executing it.”

Smith finished his night with 14 carries for 209 yards.

Fields added 13 for 47 while Davis managed 52 yards with his nine attempts.

“Greyson’s never run it before, but we’re needing someone else to carry the ball,” Shackelford said.

The Wildcats took a hit the previous week when Drew Westerhoff injured his knee.

That injury, along with others, prompted Bolton to offer his services earlier in the week.

“Us coaches have been asking kids in the hallways and the classrooms about playing because we need more kids out there,” Shackelford said. “Jayden told one of the coaches on Monday that he noticed we had a lot of kids hurt and that it looked like we could use some help.

“And he wanted to help.” Despite only practicing three days, Bolton got three carries for 16 yards.

“I told him that once we got past this game, we’d have a week off so he was basically going to have nine practices to get caught up, which is essentially how many we had to get ready for our first game of the season,” Shackelford said. “So that has the potential to be a solid addition for us.”

Davis had four total catches for 39 yards to add to his day, which also included five tackles.

The win improved Cashion to 2-1. The Wildcats are off this week and will return to action Sept. 27 when they host Merritt in their District A-1 opener.