FARMINGTON -- Mike Adams said he knew it was going to be a difficult task Friday night for his Farmington Cardinals to slow down the single-wing attack of the Clarksville Panthers.
The Farmington coach's plan was to simply try to outscore the opposition with a torrid ground attack of his own.
Clarksville outgained Farmington 365-342, but the Cardinals won on the scoreboard, 61-41 over the Panthers in the 5A-West Conference opener for both teams at Allen Holland Field.
"That was a hard-fought ball game," Adams said. "You know, coach (Khris) Buckner does a great job with those guys, and the thing that they do is hard to prepare for, because it is so hard to simulate in practice.
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"We tried to make some adjustments throughout the game, but we knew we were going to have to keep scoring. Fortunately, our guys were able to do that."
Farmington (2-2, 1-0) opened the game with a 9-play, 72-yard drive, scoring on senior Caleb Williams' 18-yard run, who scored with a nifty cutback near the goal line for the touchdown.
Clarksville (1-3, 0-1) kept in on the ground for all seven plays of its opening drive, culminating with Colton Gregory's 8-yard run. The successful point-after gave the Panthers a 7-6 lead with 5:29 left in the first quarter.
The Cardinals took control with three consecutive touchdown.
Williams scored again from 12 yards out, and quarterback Trey Waggle completed two long scoring passes -- 74 yards to Xavier State, followed by a 64-yarder to Drew Sturgeon.
"We had some big plays early and got ahead, then we wanted to slow things down and run the clock as much as we could," Adams said. "But those guys never quit and kept coming right at us."
Nicholas Buckner, a sophomore who is the coach's son, scored on a 59-yard run to spark Clarksville midway through the second quarter, and kept the Panthers within striking distance.
Farmington entered the fourth quarter with a 39-24 lead, but it got some breathing room early in the final quarter, when Jared Oskey hauled in a 12-yard touchdown pass on fourth down.
Two minutes later, the Cardinals' Michael Sellers blocked a Clarksville punt, which was fielded and returned 24 yards by Jae Woods to make it 54-34 with 7:23 remaining.
Sports on 09/23/2017