Panthers have no answer for Harrisonville's Naida

The game between the Oak Grove Panthers and Harrisonville Wildcats wasn’t your typical dogfight – make that catfight.
Harrisonville took the Missouri River Valley Conference West battle Friday night 36-20 behind the five-touchdown, 149-yard performance of running back Derek Naida. The Wildcats also used a defensive game plan that keyed on Trey Rigby through most of three quarters and virtually shut down the Panthers’ passing game.
This loss may have ruined Oak Grove’s shot at a perfect season and dropped them a few pegs from their No. 3 ranking in Missouri Class 3, but all is not lost as district play is just a week away. This type of game against a fifth-ranked Class 4 opponent may have helped prepare this team for what lies ahead in the final three weeks of the season.
“I don’t know about that,” Panthers coach Pete Carpino said. “But next week, we have a really tough opponent in Pleasant Hill. We’ll just have to find out what we did right tonight and what we did wrong.”
Looking at went right first, the Panthers (6-1, 3-1 MRVC West) was able to run the ball for more than 300 yards despite Rigby’s slow start.
Jacob Brandt rushed for 156 yards and two scores of 10 and 7 yards, while Rigby finished with 129 yards – 107 of those coming in the second half. He was even able to rumble for 67 yards late in the game to help set up Oak Grove’s final score.
Oak Grove’s defense was able to get pressure on Harrisonville’s quarterback all night, sacking him five times and forcing a fumble. The Wildcats also committed 19 penalties for 116 yards.
“I thought our defensive line played really well tonight,” Carpino said. “Maybe they were a little winded by the end of the game, but I don’t want to make excuses. They (Harrisonville) are a well-coached football team.”
But the story of the night was Naida and the Harrisonville defense.
The Wildcats held Oak Grove’s quarterback Caleb Barnhill to 6-of-19 passing for 15 yards. He was sacked twice and intercepted once. Barnhill did hit Jacob Horn on a 1-yard score in the first quarter to put the Panthers up 7-6 for their only lead of the game.
It wasn’t so much pressure on Barnhill coming from the defensive line as it was coverage from the secondary on the wide receivers that made the difference for Harrisonville.
“We battled with them,” wide receiver Jacob Horn said, “and we fought as hard as we could. I thought we played our hearts out.”
Naida, who scored all five of Harrisonville’s touchdowns, did it first through the air on Harrisonville’s first play of the game when he caught a 53-yard pass from Sam Cooper. He then scored on runs of 11, 12, 18 and 5 yards. The Wildcats scored on a safety in the second quarter when Jamey Mongold blocked a punt out of the end zone.
The win puts Harrisonville (6-1) in the driver’s seat for the MRVC title as it ups its conference record to 4-0.