Rangers try to extend series winning streak

LEA LESSLEY SPORTS WRITER

New Roland head football coach Austin Cantrell and his Rangers will attempt to defeat rival Muldrow for t h e f o u r t h straight season Thursday night in the Battle of 64 high school football series at Muldrow.

Kickoff inside Aubrey J. Henshaw Bulldog Stadium is slated for 7 p.m.

Cantrell, a Roland High School alumnus, was a Ranger assistant the past three seasons during the w i n n i n g streak (20- 7 in 2021, 6-0 in ‚20 and 14-12 in ‚19).

“We‚re young,” Cantrell said. “ We have a total of about six or seven guys that played meaningful snaps last year in (varsity) football so I think they have the edge as far as experience goes. I think we match up pretty well though, honestly, but I think their experience is going to be their edge against us.”

ROLAND DEFENSE Roland‚s base defense is the 4-4 and some of their key defensive players are defensive linemen Mason Schalski and Joseph Stone, defensive end Desean Cruse, inside linebackers Ashton Peters and Alex Bower, outside linebacker Michael Taylor and defensive backs Dakota Price, Kejuan Youngblood and Logan Lorenz.

“Their base offense is multiple and they‚re probably 60/40 or somewhere in there,” said Cantrell. “They‚re going to run the ball a little more than they‚re going to pass it. They‚re going to try to get the ball to (Trenden) Collins, that‚s going to be one of their main game plans and I didn‚t have to see film to know that.

“Defensively our line play‚s got to improve,” Cantrell said about defensive keys for his team Thursday night. “We‚ve got to maintain our gaps better than we did in our scrimmage and then just tackling, and that goes back to our inexperience. We‚ve got to be better tacklers. In our scrimmage we had the guy and he gets another five or 10 yards on the play because we miss a tackle.

“Defensively we have to focus more on what we do. Muldrow is not doing anything that‚s just crazy or anything like that. They‚re playing football, they‚re playing good football. They‚re not going to try to run a ton of trick plays, or they haven‚t showed it anyway. I think they‚re going to just line up and play football and try to beat us at their game. Again, D-line play has got to be better and whenever we get our hands on a guy we‚ve got to get him down.”

Some of the Bulldogs‚ key players on offense are linemen Eli Crumrine, Mason Osborne, Hayden Boyette, Bryson Limore and Destin Partain, quarterback Camden Matthews, wide receivers Trenden Collins, Bobby Plank and Jacob Gregory, running back Cody Gibbs, kicker David Frias and Matthews, Muldrow‚s punter.

ROLAND OFFENSE The Rangers‚ base offense is multiple and a few of their key offensive players are linemen Mason Schalski, Joseph Stone, Jacob Resendez and Ethan Dominic, quarterback Logen Thomas, running backs Kejuan Youngblood and Michael Taylor, fullback Ashton Peters, tight end Desean Cruse and wide receivers Dakota Price and Logan Lorenz, who is also Roland‚s kicker.

“Muldrow‚s base defense is the 3-4 and offensively we‚ve got to execute our base plays and we‚ve got to be able to handle their D-line,” Cantrell said. “I think that they have a pretty solid D-line. Anytime anybody‚s in a three-man front it usually tells you they‚ve got a pretty good nose guard or at least they believe in him and I think that they have a very solid nose guard. Their ends are well coached and they‚re physical. If we can do what we‚re supposed to do and at the very least execute the assignment I think we‚ll have a solid chance to be able to move the ball down the field.”

Some of the Bulldogs‚ key defensive players are defensive linemen Eli Crumrine, Levi Bishop and Devlin Mosby, inside linebackers Jacob Gregory, Cody Gibbs and Will Stratmann, outside linebackers Logan Landers and Bryson Limore and defensive backs Trenden Collins, Bobby Plank, David Frias and Camden Matthews.

The Rangers scrimmaged at Sequoyah-Tahlequah last Friday.

“I think the scrimmage for us was a little bit of a wake-up call,” Cantrell said. “We‚ve got 50 guys on the team and we get our 1‚s going against our 2‚s and we start to think we‚re real good and we get up there against other people‚s 1‚s and I think it was a little bit of a wake-up call that we‚ve got to do better on scout team and we can‚t be taking plays off in practice.

“It went well at times and then at times it was a big wake-up for us.”