For nearly a quarter last week the Durant Lions had powerful Ardmore on its heels but had no points to show for it.
One big play and a pair of special teams miscues yielded 14 points to the explosive Tigers in less than a minute and the visitors rolled to a 41-0 non-district victory at Paul Laird Field that dropped Durant’s record to 1-2.
“We had things going our way in the first quarter but a couple of special teams blunders helped turn the tide,” Lion head coach Todd Vargas said. “Ardmore is a tremendous team and after those mistakes they just kind of steamrolled us. When they got in the open field we had nobody that could catch them. Offensively we were plagued by mistakes and penalties on early downs and that put us behind the chains most of the night. We need to be in third-and-manageable situations to have success in our offense. We’re going to struggle in third and long.
“We have played two fantastic clubs the past two weeks. Both of them have so much speed and we struggled offensively. We are making a lot of mistakes with our youth and battling through some growing pains. Playing against really talented teams has made it look ugly at times. We have a series when we play well and then miss an assignment on the next series and give us a big play. We just need to be more consistent.”
Durant’s defense came up with huge plays early to hold Ardmore at bay as junior Bladyn Brown picked off a Tiger pass on the second play of the game and Graham McIlvoy added a drive-stopping sack on the next series. Those were sandwiched around the Lions best offensive drive of the night that stalled at the Ardmore 20 and resulted in a botched field goal attempt.
Following the quick two scores, Ardmore notched a safety and then cashed in a 62-yard free kick return for another score and 24-0 advantage with 4:20 left in the first half.
A Karson Finley interception late in the first half gave Durant brief momentum but the Lions ran out of time at the Tiger 42.
The Tigers controlled the final two periods with one of the few Lion bright spots coming on a 47-yard kickoff return by Finley. He also jumped on an Ardmore fumble that was forced by Cale Worsham for the third DHS takeaway of the game.
Durant finished with just 35 total yards, all on the ground, with Joseph Flores tallying 23 positive yards on 11 carries.
This week the Lions will be on the road for their final pre-district tune up as they travel to Clinton to meet the Red Tornadoes on the gridiron for the first time since the 1978 state championship game.
Quarterback Easten Powell is one of the top signal callers in Class 4A, accounting for 527 total yards and five touchdowns in the Red Tornadoes’ season-opening win over Chandler. They also defeated perennial power Blanchard with their lone loss coming last week to Kingfisher.
“Their quarterback is really good,” Vargas added. “He’s a talented runner – strong and tough. They run out of a plethora of formations but don’t have near the speed we have seen the past two weeks. They throw some screens and bubbles out of the spread so it’s going to be a challenging game for us.
“Hopefully we can do a better job of sustaining drives offensively and cleaning up mistakes. If we do that we feel like we can expose them in some areas.”
