Rangers play Stilwell for first time since 2007

Roland takes on Stilwell for the first time in 15 years Friday night when the Rangers host the Indians in their home opener.

Kickoff for the non-district game inside Ranger Stadium is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Last week the Class 2A Rangers lost 34-6 at 3A Muldrow in their season opener and 4A Stilwell scrimmaged Class A Porter.

In 2007 Stilwell defeated the Rangers 35-13 in Adair County and the previous season Roland beat the Indians 53-23 at home.

“They‚ve got a couple of cats,” Roland head coach Austin Cantrell said about the Indians. “Their running back is very fast, they‚ve got a good quarterback, a goodsized fullback and I think they‚re pretty athletic and have pretty good size up front. Their offense is what really is kind of scary to us because they‚ve got a guy that can go.”

Some of Stilwell‚s key players on offense are linemen Blake Crozier (6-3, 265, sr.) and Kyle Robertson (6-1, 250, sr.), running back Ethan Richards (5-7, 150, sr.) and quarterback Cainan Mink (6-0, 175, sr.).

“They‚re going to try to get the ball to their running back,” Cantrell said. “That‚s what their offense is centered around. The guy can go and they‚re going to throw it to him, hand it to him and try to get him the ball.

“On defense we‚ve got to keep contain. We didn‚t do a good job against Muldrow the other night. As far as our interior linemen we‚ve got to make sure we‚re not shooting gaps and opening up holes, and just tackle. When we get ahold of somebody we‚ve got to be able to get them on the ground.”

Stilwell‚s base defense is the 3-4 and three of the Indians‚ defensive standouts are linebackers Malachi McNac (5-9, 180, jr.) and Colby Philpot (5-10, 200, jr.) and defensive back Trey Chuculate (5-10, 150, jr.).

“Offensively we‚ve got to execute,” Cantrell said. “We‚ve just got to be able to execute our base offense. Us being young we‚re still struggling just to kind of wrap our heads around some of the stuff that we try to do. If we can just manage to minimize the amount of missed assignments that we have I think we‚ll be ok.

“We came out against Muldrow the second half and I thought we were calm, we went down and scored on the first drive and we got a stop. We shut them out the second half. It was promising. I think that we‚ve got a lot of guys that are going to stick with it and they‚re going to get better as we get going, it‚s just going to take some time.

“I think we have a good chance to beat Stilwell if we can execute our offense, tackle on defense and just play assignmentsound football.”