The Wes-Del Warriors came into Friday night with one thing in mind: to win. A team who has been on the search for just one of those this season got just that tonight, and to make it better, it came on homecoming.
Coming into the game against Southern Wells, they were outscored 126-32. Head coach Matt Nuckols has been telling his team to stay on track and things will start to fall into line.
“It shows them that the stuff we've been working on works,” he said. “It gets them back to that belief. You know, we were in a similar boat last year. Ended up with 4-6 after that little jump start, it resets expectations. What we've done these last three weeks, we found ways to get better and this is kind of a restart of the season for our guys.
“They're in a great, great spot right now mentally.”
The Warriors tallied 321 yards on the ground and five touchdowns in the first half. Sophomore Eli Wright led the charge with three of his own and 204 rushing yards. Wright accredited his offensive line for his career night.
“It was definitely our o-line,” he said. “Our line is really good and they just played incredible. On the outside plays, they got out in front and just worked so hard to get down field.”
To the Warriors, the biggest story tonight was Wright and his three touchdowns. Nuckols has seen these glimpses all season and was happy that he was finally able to break out of that shell.
“He had a couple big runs earlier in the season,” he said. “We got four different wings that we try to rotate because all those guys are playing defense, trying to keep everybody healthy. But after that first round, we knew we had to feed him.
“He ran his tail off, he ran hard and he ran fast. Knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He and all those wings did, but he really stepped up in this game.”
Complimenting the strong offensive performance, the Warrior defense held strong allowing only one touchdown on the half. Southern Wells was held to -17 rushing yards and 127 passing yards in the first two quarters.
“I think all of the credit tonight should go to our defensive line,” senior linebacker Grayson Mealy said. “Those guys up front are amazing, and they were getting off blocks today so fast and making those plays in the backfield.”
Wes-Del owned the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. In return, the Warriors were able to accumulate over 500 yards on the ground. Nuckols attributes that to their work this week in practice and his offensive line.
“We really worked on two big things this week,” he said. “We worked on our counters and we worked on our rockets. Those are two plays we knew we had to get better at. We haven't been running them well, and they've been staples for us in the past. It was what we worked on this week, and hit it hard in practice, and we were able to pop and do some really good stuff there.”
The Warriors faced some adversity this week as starting quarterback Kameran Vonderscmitt was sidelined with an injury. Freshman Noah Perdue stepped up and filled big shoes for Nuckols’ offense.
“Biggest thing I'm really proud of, though, is we've had to deal with a lot of adversity this week,” he said. “Our starting quarterback, who's been our guy from the beginning, went down on Wednesday. We had our freshman Noah Purdue and our senior Tyler Summers step in there and I’m just so proud of them.
“Noah ran pretty much the whole game and got the ball where it needed to go, ran the show even there late. He knew how to handle the clock. I’m just very proud of him and how the team rallied around that.”
The run game domination for Wes-Del was due largely to reps and working on those plays day in and day out. Sophomore Rhyker Mauck was able to tack on a hard-nosed touchdown of his own late in the first half.
“It comes from a lot of reps in practice,” he said. “We drill those over and over again. We rep it all week and it paid off tonight.”
Although the Warriors would have liked a win sooner, getting the first one could not have come at a better time. With the 0-3 start, picking it up on homecoming meant more for not only players, but also the community.
“The whole community was here,” he said. “Getting the win on homecoming is awesome. I mean, we had the whole crowd behind us and it showed what we can do to the whole crowd. I think that'll continue to build momentum through the season.”
Nuckols was happy with his team’s ability to run the ball tonight. They plan to continue to dominate games on the ground and make teams hurt in the run-game.
“We knew coming into this, if we want to be successful tonight and throughout the season, we have got to make sure that we establish that run and we can be successful with that,” he said. “You know, we're wing t and we throw the ball, we do some stuff like that, but we have to establish the run first, and we've done all right in a couple games, but not in every game.”
Wes-Del will look to build this win into a streak next Friday, Sept. 20th, on the road against North White at 7 p.m.
Contact Logan Connor via email at logan.connor@bsu.edu or via X @_loganconnor.
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