CARTHAGE, Mo. — If a pattern of only two years can qualify as a streak, the Carthage Tigers snapped one at David Haffner Stadium on Friday night.
With a 28-14 victory over the Republic Tigers (8-4), Carthage (10-1) claimed the Class 5 District 6 crown for the first time since 2019, a year in which the Tigers went on to win a state championship. The past two seasons, Carthage has fallen to rival Webb City in the district championship game, but will now advance to the quarterfinals next week, facing Lebanon on the road.
“It was only two years,” coach Jon Guidie said with a smile, reflecting on the night’s achievement and the previous pair of seasons. “I guess you never know how good it is. We weren’t in it for a couple years. To be able to get back to this spot and get a win over a really good football team, man, it really feels good.”
To earn their district crown, the Tigers relied heavily on senior quarterback Cooper Jadwin and the same shutdown defense they’ve gotten all year. With Air Force commit running back Luke Gall not 100% recovered from an injury that kept him out of last week’s matchup with Willard, Jadwin was unquestionably the focal point of the Tigers’ offense. He finished with 19 carries, amassing 183 yards and two touchdowns.
“He was determined,” Guidie said. “You talk about a kid playing with some fire. He took a load off of Luke’s shoulders tonight. He carried the load there and was able to get out some runs. It was kind of one of those nights, we felt like we just needed to work some clock and run the football and we had success doing that.”
The Carthage defense set the tone for the game, forcing Republic to go three-and-out on its first two possessions of the game, and punts on its first three drives. Republic didn’t manage a first down until within the 3:00 mark of the first quarter.
“We wanted to come out and play physical and fast,” Guidie said. “We couldn’t just play fast, we couldn’t just play physical, we had to play fast and physical and we did that up front. Kids on the back end covered those tall—they have some really nice-looking receivers out there. We did a good job in coverage, just played a physical brand of football tonight, that’s for sure.”
Not to be shown up, Gall, the two-way senior, carried the ball 18 times for 129 yards and his own pair of touchdowns.
Guidie said he “wasn’t quite 100%” and that the team is hopeful he’ll continue his recovery.
“Obviously we’re going to need him down the road,” Guidie said.
Eleven weeks ago, Carthage and Republic met to open the 2022 season, with the former securing a 56-26 victory, but Republic lost only two more matchups the rest of the season before Friday night, and reached the district title game by upsetting No. 2 seed Webb City 30-21 last week. Guidie was highly complimentary of the Tigers, coached by Ryan Cornelson.
“We knew, and I told the coach after the game Week One, that they were going to win a lot of ball games,” he said. “We knew that they were going to be very talented, they play hard, their coach is doing a fantastic job over there, changing the culture. Those kids believe, you can see that.”
CARTHAGE 28, REPUBLIC 14
Republic 0 6 8 0 — 14
Carthage 14 7 7 0 — 28
CAR: Luke Gall 19 run (Mejia kick)
CAR: Cooper Jadwin 33 run (Mejia kick)
REP: James Rexroat 23 pass from Wyatt Woods (Run failed)
CAR: Jadwin 3 run (Mejia Kick)
CAR: Gall 1 run (Mejia kick)
REP: Rexroat 6 pass from Woods (Rexroat pass from Woods)
