Sikeston looking to right the ship after dropping last two games

Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Sikeston's Victwon Riley tries to break a tackle against Jackson on Friday night at Jackson High School. (David Jenkins/Standard Democrat)

sports@standard-democrat.com

SIKESTON -- Despite back to back losses, the Sikeston Bulldogs are still sitting in good shape for postseason football this season.

The conference slate is over and the Bulldogs missed out on a chance to win its first league title since 2012 after last week's 41-0 loss to Jackson, but Sikeston remains seeded third in Class 4, District 1 and they also own the tiebreaker against No. 2 seeded Cape Central.

The Bulldogs hope to strengthen its grip on a high seed when they host Soldan on homecoming night tomorrow at Sikeston Public Schools Stadium.

It's an important game for the Bulldogs, if for no other reason than to gain some confidence back after starting the season at 5-0.

"I hope that we're going to bounce back," Sikeston coach Kent Gibbs said. "That's one of the things we've talked about, is being able to bounce back and overcome the adversity that we're seeing. But the bottom line, as I've told the kids, is we've got a chance to be 6-2 and that's all you've got to worry about right now."

Sikeston's offense has become stagnant in the last two games against Poplar Bluff and Jackson. Gibbs said this week's practices have been more about fundamentals on the offensive side of the ball.

"After the last couple of weeks we've just got to get things clicking," Gibbs said. "What we've tried to do is we broke our offense down and really have kind of gone back to the basics a little bit with blocking, taking the right angles and making sure our feet are moving and those kind of things. We're going to limit our offense a little bit and not try to do too much and just work with what we've got."

In addition to that, Gibbs blames part of the offense's struggles on being out of rhythm due to the double-tight, double-wing's nature of being a ball control offense. He says he intends to not be as much concerned with controlling the clock as he is about keeping a steady rhythm this week.

"We're going to try to go just a little bit faster than what we've been going," Gibbs said. "We felt like maybe that's something we haven't done a good job of. Whether you're running a power offense or whether you're spreading them out, sometimes tempo kind of gets you in a groove. We're going to tempo a little bit and see if we can move a little bit quicker and get maybe a few more plays in."

As for Soldan, the Tigers come into the game with a 3-3 record. The team's most notable win came against Miller Career Academy, 36-34.

Soldan lost to Vashon 50-14 two weeks ago, but bounced back to defeat Cleveland 32-8 last week.

"They're big up front -- they've got a lot of athletes," Gibbs said. "We don't have a whole lot of stuff on them to look at to be real honest about it. But they run a myriad of things on offense. They'll run a two-back, they'll run a no-back, they'll run a three-back. So obviously defensively we've got to be ready to play fundamentally sound, base defense and rally to the ball and make sure they don't make big plays on us."

The Tigers' quarterback is 5-foot-7, 175 pound senior Ronald Clower, who has thrown for 1,045 yards on 71 of 115 passing (61 percent). He has nine touchdowns and two interceptions.

He also leads the team with 358 yards rushing with five touchdowns and averages 8.5 yards per carry.

Running backs Timothy Lunceford, a 5-9 sophomore, and 5-5 junior Arnold Adams follow up with 271 and 236 yards rushing, respectively.

Adams doubles up as a receiving threat, catching 19 passes for 281 yards and a pair of scores.

Junior Tyreik Fisher leads the team with 311 receiving yards on 19 catches and three TDs.

Courtney Barlow, a 6-1 senior, has 15 catches for 218 yards and three touchdowns. Maxwell Webber, a 6-2 senior, has nine catches for 138 yards and a score.

"I think because of their different offensive looks we've got to be able to play our base defense," Gibbs said. "We've got to get pressure on the quarterback. When they get out in space we're going to have to rally to the ball and make sure we make plays. Nothing cheap. We've given up some of those kind of touchdowns that you don't like to see."

On the defensive side of the ball, 6-2, 200-pound senior Jaylen Bohannon, who is being recruited by Southeast Missouri State University, is the top playmaker with 82 tackles, nine sacks and two fumble recoveries.

"He's their best player -- he's a good player," Gibbs said of Bohannon.

Sikeston is led in rushing by senior Victwon Riley's 587 yards and 10 touchdowns. Senior Earnest Fobbs follows up with 506 yards and six touchdowns.

Senior quarterback Nathan Hampton has thrown for 633 yards on 41 of 80 passing with five touchdowns.

Fobbs leads the team in receiving with 219 yards on 16 catches with a pair of scores. Junior Justus Faulkner follows up with seven catches for 119 yards. Deterio Newman has five catches for 104 yards and three touchdowns.

Of his team's two main offensive sets -- double tight, double wing and spread -- Gibbs says he isn't sure which offense will be used the most tomorrow night.

"We've game-planned for both of our different looks, whether we spread them out or whether we come in tight," Gibbs said. "And hopefully we've cleaned up our mistakes. That's the biggest thing for us. Just clean up what we do and get a little bit better. Plus we need to finish. We got down in the red zone a couple of times against Jackson and we didn't finish. We need to finish what we've got and make sure we're taking care of what our assignments are, block in our tracks, hanging onto ball and not make the mistakes that we've been making."

Sikeston defeated Soldan last year 30-14 in the only meeting between the two schools in football.

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