4B | The Marshfield Mail | October 24, 2012 SportS

Plant Food MeetingWed., Nov. 14 at 6:30 p.m.

Prairie Grove Amish Mennonite SchoolBu� alo, Mo

� urs., Nov. 152 p.m. for Produce growers6 p.m. for row crop farmers

Lamar, Mo At Denny’s Restaurant

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Tom StoddardAn Illinois agronomist Now with Insta-Gro

Nelson MillerAn Insta-Gro distributor and

Produce specialist from OH/KYIf you are interested in quality and yield of crops and forage you will want to attend one of these meetings.

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Vernon Hostetler1876 E. 425th • Halfway, MO 65663

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Continued from Page 1BLikewise, Worsham

could not downplay the mental toughness of her team.

“That’s a big mental thing, to just know what your goals are just put that (loss) behind you and move on to the next thing,” she said. “That’s great for life, too, not just in sports. It says a lot about the character of these girls.”

The Lady ‘Cats, who finished the season with a 17-1 mark, will bring back every varsity player next season, save one.

“It’s really sad, actu-ally,” Eakins said after ending her career with a

win. “I’m not ready to be done, yet. But I feel like I’m leaving the team in good hands, and I’ll be back next year to watch everyone play.”

One of the key cogs returning next season will be Young. The junior, who has been the Lady Wildcats’ No. 1 player for much of her career, won her opening round matchup over Bishop DuBourg’s Lauren Engel, 2-0 in the individual state singles tournament last Friday morning. Young followed the win up with a 2-0 loss to Barstow’s Alena Frye — the eventu-al Class 1 individual state champion.

Moving forward with-out Eakins will be tough. But as for Young and the rest of the Lady Wildcats, Worsham said they’ll take some time to soak in the experience of playing at the state tournament. That experience, she said, along with plenty of returning players, could lead to another exciting season in 2013.

The key, however, will be replacing the leader-ship of Eakins.

“There will be a spot,” she said. “Those will be big shoes to fill. We’ll have to see who wants it. Everybody else will be back, though, and that’s great.”

‘CATS: Team ends season 17-1

Lady Eagles wrapping up their season

Contributed photoThe Marshfield Christian School Lady Eagles volleyball team front row, from left, are Baileigh Brinkley, Micah Moore, Austyn Moore, Drakshya Dugan, Kara Heape, Araya Goss and Abbi Novotny. Back row, from left, are coach Hollie Schoenwald, Grace Ivie, Kyla Marlin, Haley Kilburn, Bekah Detwiler, Jennifer Scritchfield, Janette Comfort, Amber Brinkley and coach Virginia O’Neal. The junior varsity Eagles are 3-3 and varsity 2-8 with three games to go in the season. The Eagles are sponsored by Marshfield Electric, Tackett CPA, Liberty Tech Solutions, Hartwell’s Hardware, Century Realty, Southern Missouri Bank, C R Realty, Chastain Rental, Absolute Muffler, Sum Enter-prises, Country Pride Propane, Stanley’s Pharmacy, Perkins Auction, Satellite Solutions, Imagination Station of Marshfield, Country Express, Mailbox It, Farm Bureau Insurance, Glitzy, LLC, Overstock and Wholesale Outlet, Day’s Floor Company, Cato Fashions, Nancy’s Massage, Comfort Lawn Services, Car Works Auto Repair, Animal Medi-cal Center, Young’s Shopping Center, Brooks Gas Company, Webster County Printing, Young’s Insurance, Joyce Comfort Housecleaning, Late Sunrise Farms, Marshfield Thrift Barn, Singer Auto Parts, New York Life Insurance, American Family Insurance, NU2U Auctions and Grave’s Accounting and Tax.

YOUR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER

Continued from Page 2BThe Tigers, on the

other hand, are riding the strength of a five-game winning streak, capped off with a 49-22 win over Willard in the regular-season finale last Friday.

Carthage finished its regular season with a 7-2 (5-2 conference) mark to claim the No. 3 seed in the district, with its only two losses coming to fellow large Central Ozark Confer-ence foes Webb City and Ozark.

“They’re a really good football team that plays in one of the best con-ferences in the state,” Codutti said. “They’re a fantastically talented team. That’s expected from a bigger-confer-ence school, and Car-thage has brought that kind of talent for the past six-eight years.”

Against similar op-ponents, the odds cer-tainly favor the Tigers.

Carthage has record-ed wins over Willard (49-22) and Republic (41-20) this season — two matchups the Blue Jays lost in back-to-back weeks to open the season (40-20 to Willard and 28-14 to Republic).

Offensively, the Tigers have had no problems scoring this season. Carthage has scored an average of 45.33 points per game this year. However, take away the losses to Class 4 No. 1 state-ranked Webb City (67-20) and Class 5 No. 4 state-ranked Ozark (65-26), and the Tigers are scor-ing an average of 51.7 points per game.

“They’re multiple formations,” Codutti said of the Tigers’ of-

fense. “(Coach Jon Gui-die’s) theory is he likes to run a lot of forma-tions and just a few plays. He likes to get his athletes the ball. He has two phenomenal athletes on his offense, and he does a good job of getting them the football.”

One of those ath-letes, is all-state run-ning back Seth Beckner. In his junior-year all-state campaign, Beck-ner rushed for 1,662 yards and 23 touch-downs on 200 carries, and 2012 has been quite the encore.

This year, Beckner has carried for more than 1,500 yards on fewer carries, and has nearly matched his rushing touchdown to-tal from a year ago. In addition to his stellar ground game, Beck-ner has hauled in more than 20 receptions for nearly 700 yards and nine touchdowns, put-ting him well over 2,000 yards and nearly 30 touchdowns of total of-fense on the season.

“We’ve got to make sure we know who their playmakers are and where they are at all times,” Codutti said. “We have to key on (Beckner) and those other guys, because that’s who they’re going to get the ball to. They don’t hide that from anybody.”

Giving up the big play has been a prob-lem for the Blue Jays’ defense, which has al-lowed an average of 30 points per game. But, Codutti said, he feels his defense has played better than the stats in-dicate, and his team is much stronger than the

3-6 record shows.“We’re one play

away,” he said. “That’s the story of the season. A third-down conver-sion here, don’t rough the punter there or make a tackle here, and there’s the difference. We’re one play away in a lot of games from be-ing a 6-3 football team.”

Codutti added, “These kids are so close. They’re com-peting in games they didn’t compete in last year. We’ve just got to get them over that little hump, and they’re go-ing to be okay.”

Defensively, the Ti-gers won’t bring any surprises to the Blue Jays.

Carthage has allowed an average of 34 points per game this season on defense, with nearly 44 percent of that com-ing in the two losses to Webb City and Ozark. Minus those two blips in the loss column, and the Tigers have given up just 25 points per game.

Marshfield, on the other hand, has posted 26 points per game, offensively, and 37.2 points per game in its final two matchups. Codutti is hoping those numbers indicate his team will find success, offensively, against the Tigers.

“We hope so,” he said. “They’re very ba-sic on defense. They run man and stack the box with as many play-ers as possible. We’ll use plays to get the ball to our key playmakers as much as we possibly can.”

The Blue Jays aren’t short on playmakers, either. Armstrong threw

for 296 yards and three touchdowns in the loss to Catholic — 198 yards and two scores of which went to fellow junior Findley. Senior Austin Crotinger rushed for 112 yards and a score in the loss, as well.

But facing such a Goliath-like opponent, Codutti said the key will be jumping on the Tigers early to build his squad’s confidence. And, he said, there’s a chance Carthage could be sleeping on his No. 6 seed Blue Jays.

“That’s what we’re going for,” he said. “We’re hoping they’re overlooking us. We’re hoping we can jump on top of them and find some success early. If we do that, I think our kids will have the con-fidence to play with these guys.”

Should the Blue Jays pull the upset, they’ll face off with the winner of Hillcrest/Carl Junc-tion next Wednesday in the district semifinals. That’d be good news for not only this year’s team, Codutti said, but also for the program as a whole.

“If we beat Carthage, that could be the win to turn this program around,” Codutti said. “Every program needs that one (signature) win that turns things around. That’s what we’re going for. After that, anything could happen.”

Marshfield and the Tigers kick off at 7 p.m. Thursday night in Car-thage. Check back at www.marshfieldmail.com/sports after the game for a complete wrap-up and photo gallery.

JAYS: Carthage giving up 34 points per game

Annual Iron Mountain run held in FordlandBy Karen Blisskarenb@southcountymail.com

Cross county schools from the local area com-peted in the annual Iron Mountain Run in Ford-land on Tuesday, Oct. 16.

This year, runners ran through the field off of Iron Mountain Road in-stead of the usual run on the pavement.

“We definitely made the transition this year from a road course to a true ‘cross-country’ course,” said Fordland head coach Patrick Ber-toldie in his welcome to the Iron Mountain Run participants.

The varsity race con-sisted of 3.1 miles and two full laps with a par-tial lap that turned left into the middle of the field.

For varsity boys, Ava was the top team, while Springfield Catholic fin-ished ahead of the field on the girls’ side.

Senior Josh Woods led the way for Fordland run-ners in the event. Woods came in 16th out of 112 runners with a time of

19:45, receiving a medal.Other runners for the

Fordland boys included Zach Irvin at 51st place with 21:40, Dakota Wil-lis at 59th place with 22:10, Justin Krysiak at 66th place with 22:25 and Sean Orr in 87th place with 24:10.

Paige Davis was the top Fordland girls partic-ipant, finishing 23rd out of 57 with a time of 24:26.

Mail photo by Karen BlissEagles’ senior Josh Woods was the top runner for the varsity boys in Fordland’s annual Iron Mountain Run Oct. 16. Woods placed 16th out of 112 runners with a time of 19:45.