By Levi Payton
sports@joplinglobe.com
McAuley Catholic High School had no answer for St. Vincent-Perryville halfback Eli Hoeckele on Friday night at Missouri Southern’s Fred G. Hughes Stadium.
The senior toted the ball 19 times for 118 yards and two touchdowns to spark the Indians to a 27-7 victory in the season-opener for both teams.
The Indians ran the ball 37 times, with the bulk of those carries, and all three rushing touchdowns, coming in the second half. Hoeckele ripped off consecutive touchdown runs of five and 32 yards to ice the game in the fourth quarter.
The strategy, according to Indians coach Keith Winkler, wasn’t planned.
“Running the ball is more our style of play,” Winkler said. “I knew that they didn’t have a lot of players over there, but we weren’t necessarily running the ball for those reasons.”
The Warriors had 18 players suited up.
St. Vincent was the first to jump on board when quarterback Justin L’hote found receiver Josh Rollet on an 18-yard fade route in the west corner of the end zone to make it 6-0.
The Warriors stormed back to tie the game when quarterback Austin Metts found Arvie Kilongkilong open in the right flat from six yards out with 5:09 remaining in the half.
“We’re in pretty good shape, but when you’ve only got 17 players eligible it becomes a problem,” Warriors coach Brenden Gubera said.
One of the bright spots for the Warriors was the play of Metts. The sophomore completed 10 of 31 passes for 151 yards and a score.
“Austin did a lot of good things tonight,” Gubera said. “It was only his third varsity start and I thought he threw the ball real well.”
With most teams having seen scrimmage action last week, Friday night served as the first time the Indians had played someone other than themselves after thunderstorms washed out their Jamboree.
“This (game) was our Jamboree,” Winkler said. “We played pretty vanilla tonight because we didn’t know what to expect from our players.
“Collectively, I thought the effort was there for both teams.”
Kilongkilong caught three passes for 41 yards. Teammate Tyler Parrigon hauled in three passes for 51 yards.
Still, it wasn’t enough to win the game.
“When the chips were down we didn’t rise to the occasion,” Gubera said.
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