The Yates Center Wildcats lost their homecoming game to the St. Marys Bears by a score of 70-0 on Friday night. Yates Center is now 1-4 on the season with this loss.
The game would begin with a nightmare as the kick returners for Yates Center bobbled the kickoff. After a three-and-out, The Bears would score on the ensuing possession with a three-yard touchdown run by Anthony King.
St. Marys QB Michael Flanagan hit Jory Schindler for a 29-yard touchdown pass and later Austin Rieschick for a 47-yard TD to put the game away early. SMHS never had to punt on the night and made it 49-0 even while trying to run out the clock as a 64-yard TD from King ended the second quarter.
“We came out and it looked like it was a game we weren’t ready to play tonight,” head coach Tanner Davis said. “We gotta go back next week and go back to the drawing board and get better. We need to go look back look at film and build on what we’ve done right and look at things we’ve done wrong and hope we get better at everything.”
Yates Center had one interception by Thayne Smith as the first quarter ended, but that was the only positive on a bleak night. They had only two first downs with one coming from a penalty and the other on a fake punt run by Smith.
The second half was nearly identical with a running clock. St. Marys scored on a 65-yard run by backup QB Caden Hurla and a punt return TD from Charles King. To add more insult, SMHS scored a touchdown on the final play from a 43-yard run by reserve freshman Greg Unzueta.
This became the fourth loss of the season for the Wildcats with a loss margin of at least 36 points. It was the first shutout defeat of the season.
“We just gotta keep building and getting better each week and hopefully good things will start happening that’s all we can tell them,” Davis said. “They come into practice and word really hard and hopefully that hard work starts paying off for them.”
The Wildcats will travel to Olpe next week to face Olpe High School.
