The Hallsville Indians football team traveled to meet the Osage Indians and lost 23-0.
A fumble of the opening kickoff had Hallsville starting from their own six-yard line. They managed to move the ball out of the shadow of the end zone, but a sack and penalty pushed them back to the 10-yard line. On third down and 21, Isaac Stinson out jumped an Osage defender for a 40-yard catch.
However, the offense stalled, and Hallsville was forced to punt. Osage put its ground game to work and at the 6:25 mark of the first quarter ripped off a 43-yard touchdown run. The kick was good, and Osage led 7-0.
Hallsville’s offense continued to sputter as the Indians punted three times in the first quarter. The defense did stiffen and neither team got close to the end zone in the rest of the half, going to the locker room with the score still 7-0.
The defensive play continued in the third until Osage scored on a 19-yard touchdown run at the 4:12 mark. The kick made the score 14-0.
In the fourth Hallsville did make some headway but on a third and 24 Osage intercepted the pass. Their rushing attack ate three minutes off the game clock and they kicked a 40-yard field goal at the 4:28 mark to push the lead to 17-0.
Hallsville had another shot but failed to convert on fourth down. Osage scored on a five-yard touchdown with 1:43 left in the game. The kick failed for a 23-0 score.
Hallsville spent most of the game dealing with third and long. They only converted on 29 percent of third down plays and were unable to convert any of the fourth down attempts. The Indians could not get their ground game going as the team ended up rushing for negative 19 yards. They gave up seven tackles for loss and seven sacks.
Brayden Matheney was 16 for 33 passing for 169 yards. Abe El-Fenaish carried eight times for 14 yards. Isaac Stinson had eight catches for 115 yards. Xavier Stinson led the defense with 13.5 tackles. Tison Perrigo had seven tackles and Jacob Plummer had a sack and three tackles.
“It was not our night at all, we could not get anything going offensively,” Coach Justin Conyers said. “Their defense did a great job and showed our inability to run the football. If we can’t pass, we have to be able to run and we couldn’t do that.”
Conyers did say that he was proud of the defense saying that with the huge time of possession advantage for Osage, holding them to 23 points was impressive.
Hallsville goes on the road again next week to play Southern Boone before finishing the regular season with Blair Oaks and California at home.