COMMERCE — Willie Ng would love to see his Commerce Tigers come out Thursday night with the same intensity against Hulbert that they displayed a week earlier in a 34-6 victory over Quapaw.
“We just need to go out and play with the kind of intensity we played with last week,” Ng said.
Junior tailback Brycen Sullivan had 264 yards and three touchdowns on 25 carries to lead the offense and Mikey Morgan, Raul Castilleja and a cast of many spearheaded the defense as the Tigers stopped Quapaw and snapped an uncharacteristic two-game losing streak.
“The thing I was most excited about was us being so physical,” Ng said. “I thought we had some really good, clean hits that I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks.”
Ng said the Tigers turned in one of those proverbial “team efforts.”
Morgan, Castilleja, Brady Smith, Carlos Ybarra and Gil Deissroth were among those cited by Ng.
“We had a good scheme,” he said. “We gave up 131 to Ryan (Nowlin), but they had only 206 total.”
Back-to-back losses to Salina and Ketchum dropped the Tigers from their familiar spot atop the District A-8 standings.
They are in a three-way logjam with Afton and Foyil at 6-2, but CHS will finish second in the district with a win Thursday thanks to earlier wins over both the Eagles and Panthers.
“It’s not a done deal,” Ng said. “We still have to go out and play Hulbert. Yes, they are 1-8 and I have no idea what kind of attitude they are going to being. That is not for me to worry about. We have tried to convince our kids that they better get ready. They (the Riders) have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“They can end up 2-8 and have a great season by beating us.”
Hulbert broke into the win column — there are still 19 winless 11-man teams statewide (including Wyandotte) — with a 52-6 romp over Okay — another winless squad.
The Riders broke out to a 36-0 lead at the half and more than doubled their point total for the season with the final score
They now have scored 102 points while allowing 318.
“They have struggled to put points on the board,” Ng said. “They are going to throw it a whole bunch. They ran it six times in one game. They will come out in the gun, throwing it all over the place.”
Quarterback Skyler Heaton led the way for Hulbert in its win over Okay. He had touchdown runs of 1 and 5 yards and had TD completions of 27 and 12 yards.
“I said all year if we scored first we would get our confidence,” Hulbert head coach Brad Ferguson told the Tahlequah Daily Press. “We got the momentum early and keep it. The guys really played well tonight.”
Heaton was 9 of 13 passing for 90 yards. The Riders finished with 229 yards in total offense.
Hulbert limited Okay to 63 yards total.
“We have been through a lot this year with a lot of injuries that have set us back, but we have worked our way through them and have continued to improve,” Ferguson said. “I thought we played good tonight. I was proud of the effort we put out.”
Steven Swinford is a leader on defense for the Riders, posting 99 tackles.
“I don’t like the situation we are in,” Ng said. “It’s something were not used to. We made our bed and we’re going to lie in it. That is just the way it goes.”
If the playoffs were to begin this week, the Tigers would be hosting Woodland.
“That won’t be a cakewalk,” Ng said. “I hear they are a really good football team.”
Trent Worley, who coached at Fairland before moving on to Foyil, is in his first season as head coach at Woodland.
