Strides in different directions

The events of Friday night were still crawling all over Jeff Myers on Monday morning.

The Kingfisher Yellowjackets last week dropped their second game in a row to start this 2023 season when they brought home a 37-17 defeat at the hands of Weatherford.

Both of Kingfisher’s losses have come at the hands of a team ranked in the top 10 of Class 4A.

And it’s not that the Jackets lost to the Eagles for the second time in three years and not that he didn’t see improvement in some areas and continued positives in others…because he did.

It’s “how” Kingfisher let a win slip away after storming back in the second quarter to take a 14-13 halftime lead.

“We have to quit tripping over our own feet,” Myers said. “It seemed like we took three steps forward in some parts of our game, but six steps back in others.”

The most glaring step back was in special teams.

Weatherford returned a blocked punt for a touchdown in the first half, had a kickoff return for a score in the second half and followed that up with a fumble recovery on the ensuing kickoff.

The Eagles turned that short field into another TD, breaking open the game by turning a four-point lead into a 17-point margin in a span of just over 3 minutes of game time.

“That’s the kind of stuff that just crawls all over me,” said Myers, who prides himself on his squads’ special teams.

“It only takes one or two people to not do their job and something like that happens,” he continued.

“And that was a game that we could have won.”

That certainly appeared the case at halftime.

The Jackets scored 14 straight points and forced two turnovers in the second quarter to erase a 13-0 deficit.

The first two quarters were polar opposites as KHS had just 13 yards of offense in the first quarter while Weatherford amassed 111.

Part of that was a 33-yard touchdown pass from Stone Chism to C.J. Nickson with just under a minute to play in the first quarter to give the Eagles a 6-0 lead.

KHS went nowhere on its next drive and was forced to punt, one that Steele Chism went untouched, blocked, scooped it up and ran it in from 31 yards out.

At that point, the Jackets had just 13 yards of total offense one week after being shutout by Clinton and being held to under 100 total yards.

But the fortunes reversed as the Jackets began their best drive of the season on their next possession.

Paytun Burnham extended the drive with thirddown completions to Ethan Karcher, Damien Haynes and Kasen Blair, all of which moved the chains.

Then, facing third-andlong yet again, Burnham dropped a dime into Blair’s hands after the latter broke free in the Eagle backfield.

Blair made the catch for the 33-yard touchdown, capping an 80-yard scoring drive.

“That was exactly what we needed,” Myers said. “We made some big plays to extend the drive and then an even bigger one to score. That started to give the guys some confidence.”

The defense kept the momentum on Kingfisher’s side as Hunter Delozier batted a Chism pass into the air.

Tanner Parker gobbled it up for an interception.

The offense couldn’t answer, but Jake Reagan forced a fumble on Weatherford’s next snap, one that Santiago Ortega pounced on to give the Jackets the ball at the Eagle 18 with 3:13 left in the half.

After Blair kept the drive going with a catch for a first down, Burnham hit Karcher out of the backfield with a short pass.

The senior back did the rest and found the end zone from 5 yards out. Jake Sisk’s extra-point put KHS up 14-13.

“We had talked last week about stringing some positive plays together and that’s what we did for most of that second quarter,” said Myers.

The Jackets ended the half with 109 total yards while Weatherford didn’t gain an offensive yard in the second quarter.

But in the third, the Eagles kept it on the ground.

After forcing a KHS punt to open the half, Weatherford went on a 60-yard drive with nothing but its run game.

Stone Chism put the Eagles on top 21-14 with a 13-yard TD run and the two-point run.

It appeared KHS was going to answer.

Sophomore Jhett Birdwell pulled in a spectacular one-handed catch to put the Jackets on the Weatherford 1 on a drive that started on the Jackets’ 20.

However, Kingfisher went backwards from there and had to settle for a 20--yard field goal from Sisk to pull them within 21-17.

The rest of the night belonged to the Eagles as Nick Jett ran the ensuing kickoff back 80 yards for a score.

Haynes bobbled the kickoff for KHS and the Eagles were set up at Kingfisher’s 16-yard line.

Stone Chism eventually scored from a yard out and the lead had swelled to 3417 just four seconds into the fourth quarter.

“We never got back into it,” Myers said. “And one thing that bothered me was our body language. The guys’ emotions were gone.

“There are ebbs and flows to a game and we’d already been through some. You have to continue to fight through them.”

Burnham had a big bounce back game in his second start as he completed 18 of 31 passes for 180 yards and the two scores.

“He made some better decisions, some good throws and our receivers also made the catches,” Myers said.

Blair and Haynes caught five passes each.

Blair’s covered 68 yards and Haynes another 40.

Birdwell hauled in three catches for 52 yards.

But the run game still sputtered as the Jackets had just 39 yards on 23 attempts.

“That’s not acceptable,” Myers said.

And he took exception with his offensive front.

“I made them mad today,” he said after practice. “I got after them and I’m going to get after them tomorrow.

“You’re going to see a different mindset from those guys. I want them to play mean. Not dirty, just mean and want to dominate the team across from them.”

Parker led the team with nine tackles while Jose Santoyo had six, one more than several of his teammates.

“They did their job for the most part,” Myers said. “We needed to be able to better stop the run when they changed up on us, but overall, they put us in a good position most of the night.”

Weatherford finished with 117 yards on the ground. All but 13 of those came in the second half.

The Eagles had 236 total yards, just 17 more than the Jackets.

“We played with them in just about every aspect,” Myers said. “Except special teams.

“I know they probably get tired of us talking about how special teams is just as important as offense and defense. Well, that game proved it.”