Bulldogs visit unbeaten No. 5 Stigler Thursday night

Muldrow looks to move up in the District 3A-3 standings Thursday night when the Bulldogs take on undefeated Class 3A No. 7 Stigler in Haskell County.

Kickoff inside Panther Stadium is scheduled 7 p.m.

The Bulldogs improved to 6-1 for the season and 2-1 in the district last week with a 35-12 win at Seminole (3-4 and 1-2) and Stigler (6-0 and 2-0) defeated Locust Grove (1-5 and 0-2) 43-14. Top-ranked Lincoln Christian (2-0 in the district) and Stigler lead Berryhill (2-1) and Muldrow in the district standings.

Stigler opened its season with a 31-6 home win over Sallisaw before topping Catoosa (56-6), Blackwell (52-0), Stilwell (5514) and Seminole (34-8).

“It‚s going to be a big one,” Muldrow head coach Brandon Ellis said. “It‚s going to be another tall test. They‚re traditionally rich, they‚re tough and they‚ve been running that system since (Chris) Risenhoover put it in a long time ago. Cade (Shearwood) has taken it over and has added a few little things to it but other than that it‚s Risenhoover‚s stuff. Their kids have been running that since the dawn of time over there.”

Risenhoover, the former head coach at Stigler, is now an assistant at Muskogee and Shearwood is the current head coach.

“Those kids play hard and he‚s got them going in the right direction,” Ellis said. “The whole staff does a great job with them. They‚re just a tough-nosed football team and they‚re a really good high school football team.”

In their last meeting in 2019 the Panthers downed the Bulldogs 42-0 in a District 4A-4 contest and Muldrow‚s last win (47-46) in the series came in 2017 when the teams competed in 3A-8.

Some of Stigler‚s key players on offense are wide receivers Will Rose (5-foot-11, 170-pound senior), Morgan Jones (6-1, 180, sr.) and Mason Jones (5-10, 165, jr.), quarterback McKade Peery (5-11, 165, jr.), running back/ tight end Jace Winkle (6-4, 215, sr.) and lineman Keigan Good (5-11, 270, sr.).

Stigler‚s base offense is the multiple spread.

“They‚re about 60/40 run,” said Ellis. “Stigler does a lot of eye-candy stuff where they want you to chase some stuff but the play will be coming back the other way so we‚ve got to be really disciplined on our assignments and our reads, and we‚ve got to tackle well.”

A few of the Panthers‚ key players on defense are linebackers Ace Engle (5-10, 195, jr.), Martin Hare (5-10, 175, sr.) and Mason Jones, defensive backs Will Rose and Morgan Jones and defensive lineman Keigan Good.

“They‚re a three-front on defense,” Ellis said. “They‚re an odd-front team but they‚ll walk some backers down where it almost looks like a five-front sometimes.

“Zero turnovers, control the line of scrimmage and eat time off the clock are keys for our offense this week. We‚ve got to establish the line of scrimmage, we‚ve got to win that battle.”