Blocked punt catapults Pirates past Eagles

Perryville football coach Brent Roth preached to his team the value of a punt all week.
He proved to be somewhat of a fortune teller.
Kaden Morrison blocked a punt in the second quarter that was returned for a touchdown by Devon Seabaugh for the Pirates’ first points of the game.
That play jump-started a Perryville team that struggled to get out of the gate to the tune of a 50-21 victory over Grandview Sept. 23. It is the most points Perryville football has scored in a single game since the team beat Herculaneum 48-12 during the 2020 season.
“I talked about it all week,” Roth said. “It seemed like one punt we would go hard and the next we wouldn’t. We have to value that down more because it is a defensive play where you know exactly what the opponent is going to do. Barring a fake, you know the alignment, the formation, what foot the punter kicks the ball with. It should give us an advantage as a defense. It was the key for us turning this game around.”
The key play turned what was a 14-0 deficit for Perryville with 3:30 left in the first half, into a catapult that saw the Pirates outscore the host Eagles 43-7 the rest of the game.
“We were trying to get the run game going and we were making mental errors,” Roth said. “They were giving us all kinds of space on the edge that we could have taken advantage of sooner.”
The Pirates weren’t done after the blocked punt though they got the ball back with a little more than one minute left before the half after a successful three and out. Perryville went the length of the field as quarterback Rilyand Graham found Cameron Young for a touchdown with 21 seconds remaining in the second quarter to tie the game at 14-14 after two quarters.
Graham finished the game going 11 of 18 passing for 201 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.
Perryville kept that momentum going into the third quarter as they would have another defensive score this time by Alex Sanders on a fumble recovery to give Perryville a 21-14 lead.
The Eagles went for it on fourth down deep inside their own territory and failed, opening the door for a 20-yard touchdown by Tyler Rhyne a few plays later.

Grandview got close with a short touchdown to being the game within one score, but that was as close as the Eagles would get. Sanders scored another 37-yard touchdown, on offense this time, and Rhyne scored his second touchdown on a 20-yard pass from Graham.
Rhyne led the way with four catches for 93 yards and two scores, while Young added four catches for 68 yards.
Graham added a three-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter to ice the game at 47-21.
Alex Sanders led the way on the ground with 89 yards on eight carries and Ben Hotop had 85 on 13 carries. Perryville racked up more than 400 yards of total offense.
“This is what we expected in terms of the final score,” Roth said. “We would have preferred to see about 25 of them in the first half.”
That isn’t what happened for Perryville.
The Pirates were stopped short on a fourth down quarterback sneak early in the first quarter.
Perryville had trouble with the triple option offense of Grandview, especially the pass over the middle. Grandview scored twice with that pass in the first half as they led 14-0 with seven minute to go in the second quarter.
“I thought we started slow, and I talked with the guys about what that issue is,” Roth said. “The issue is us and we are doing something wrong where we are coming out slow and not prepared to battle. I challenged our guys with ideas of what we can do to be better from the start next week.”
Perryville (2-3) will travel to Jefferson R-7 Friday for a conference game with the Bluejays. Jefferson (2-3) defeated Bayless 42-6 in week 5.
“There are still flaws that we need to fix,” Roth said. “We were expected to win these last two games and we did. Those slow starts and miscues are happening and need to be cleaned up. I don’t believe we are playing our best football yet.”