Highlanders strike early, hand Indians 46-7 district loss

Sometimes there are clear-cut “biggest plays” of many football games and while most often those events come on a walk-off touchdown or field goal, that is not always the case.

Thursday night many MacArthur fans may have been headed to the concession stand or rest room when El Reno’s Malachi Nickolson took a handoff and started around right end. All of a sudden, he was in the clear heading toward the Mac end zone.

It looked like an imminent touchdown was coming but then came the vision of a black-clad Mac defender flying into the fray and wrestled Nickelson down at the Mac 8-yard-line. All eyes in the stadium glanced at the clock as it ticked off the final seconds to end the half.

What few knew at the time was the Indians were out of timeouts and the half ended with Mac owning a 32-7 lead.

“That was a huge play or us,” Mac coach Brett Manning said after the game ended with a 46-7 Mac victory. “Marquis Phillip didn’t give up on that play and that’s something we always stress, always play until the whistle blows.”

While it was doubtful ER would have been able to rally against the rejuvenated Mac defense, you never know.

“We’ve seen them score in a hurry, so you never know what happens if they get that one right before the halftime.” Manning said.

It was a totally different team from a week ago when Midwest City handed Mac a 42-7 loss.

“I was really proud of both our coordinators,” Manning said of OC Michael Pooschke and DC Mike Reffett. “Those guys and their assistants really put together good schemes and the guys executed it well on the field. You also have to appreciate how guys adjusted to new roles. Jeremy Hutchinson didn’t play much on offense because we needed him on defense. It was just that we needed his size and strength against them because we knew they were going to line up and run right at us.”

The Indians came to town with a reputation of being the bullies of 5A-1 as they use a big, powerful front line to move defenders aside and make room for Nickolson and others to try and squeeze through those cracks.

While the Indians did have nearly 150 yards rushing at halftime, Mac had that much passing in just the first quarter.

El Reno opted to take the opening kickoff and try to run some clock and keep Mac’s offense off the field but that strategy didn’t pan out.

Mac’s defense forced a 3-and-out then the Highlanders needed just four plays to score as Aivan Locklin threw a short TD pass to Marquise Harris and Mac worked the swinging gate for an 8-0 lead.

The Indians did flex their might on their next possession as quarterback Elijah Fisher raced 41 yards on a quarterback draw and the PAT kick got the visitors within one.

That lead grew quickly after Mac needed just three plays to score when Locklin hit a wide-open Josh Rushing to complete a 59-yard scoring play and the tide was turning in favor of the Highlanders in a hurry.

With last night’s win the Highlanders are back in the race heading toward the Trail Road Rumble next Friday against Elgin which is 7-0 entering tonight’s game at Duncan.

Mac tacked on a 33-yard field goal by Miguez Martinez for an 18-7 lead and after another ER punt, Mac moved 61 yards on five plays, the last being a 25-yard TD run by Dane Edwards that pushed the margin to 25-7.

In the second half the clock worked in Mac’s favor as the Indians would eat valuable minutes off the clock, getting to run just 14 plays in the third quarter with no points to show for that ball-control ground assault.

Mac didn’t get on the board in the third as well but when the Highlanders droive 69 yards to score early in the fourth quarter the lead had grown to 39-7 and this one was all but over. That score came when Dane Edwards hit a 6-yard TD pass to Josh Rushing who made a nice curl route to beat the defender at the goal-line.

After that the visitors were content to just run the ball and punt if needed to speed up the contest.