Not even bad rush hour traffic can stop the Festus football team.
The Tigers got hung up in St. Charles County en route to their Sept. 6 game against Francis Howell Central and had to rush their pregame warmups. The Spartans capitalized by jumping out to a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Festus roared back with 34 unanswered points for a 34-14 victory, improving to 2-0.
Next up was another road contest, this time at Windsor on Friday the 13th. I-55 was wide open for the Tiger bus and superstition was nowhere to be found as the visitors steamrolled the Owls 49-14 for three straight wins to start the season. The last time they did that was in 2020, when Festus started 7-0, won the Class 4 District 1 championship and ended up 10-2.
Windsor (2-1), which trailed 35-0 at halftime, scored its two touchdowns against Tiger reserves in the fourth quarter. It was the Mississippi Area Football Conference opener for both schools.
“In high school football sometimes there’s issues getting to a game,” Festus head coach AJ Ofodile said. “We were a little late (at Howell Central) and that carried over into warmups and how we started the game. I challenged the guys to do something about that. Let’s get our mind where it needs to be. Let’s let that reflect in our body language in warmups and (tonight) we had a fantastic warmup and a great start.”
Festus junior running back Leuantae Williams (5-7, 165) packed on about 20 pounds of muscle in the offseason and it showed as he rushed for 109 yards on nine carries, three of which he took into the end zone for touchdowns.
“I wanted to come out and make a statement tonight and show the type of player I can be,” Williams said. “I’m efficient running the ball. I can make people miss in the open and I’m going to play hard on every drive.”
Windsor’s offense struggled against the Tiger defensive front, anchored by 6-2, 275-pound senior Rob Turner and backed up by senior all-conference middle linebacker Mason Schirmer, who marauded from sideline to sideline and led the visitors with 14 tackles.
Williams scored the first of his three TDs with 9:02 left in the first, with junior kicker Luke Wacker tacking on the extra point, the first of his seven on the night. Junior David Russell returned a second Windsor punt 70 yards to paydirt and it was quickly 14-0 with 6:49 left in the first.
After his team started the season with a one-point, last-second road win over the Herculaneum Blackcats and a 40-6 blowout of the host Affton Cougars, Windsor head coach Lee Freeman knew the Tigers would be cats of a different stripe.
“Festus is a super-athletic football team and we knew that going in,” said Freeman, who was 7-1 against the Tigers when he was head coach at Hillsboro. “We’re in a situation right now where we’ve got five seniors and we have a lot of guys who have to grow up in real time. What you saw tonight was a by-product of that.”
On their third possession, the Tigers marched from midfield and sophomore running back Kamden Yates dashed to the first of his two TD runs to make it 21-0 with 3:55 left in the first quarter.
Windsor finally started moving the chains and after a long run by junior running back Willie Coleman III, the Owls were inside the red zone. But they got no closer, and 1:30 into the second, Williams gave the Tigers a 28-0 lead on a six-yard scoring burst.
“He’s been consistent all throughout the summer in terms of how he’s run the ball,” Ofodile said. “He’s always had the ability to make people miss and had good acceleration and vision, but (the question was), could he be the yards-after-contact guy, who can drop his pads and push a pile? He’s taken that to heart.”
Williams ripped off another long run, this time to the Owl 1, and he took it in from there to give Festus its halftime advantage.
Schirmer, who flips over to running back to give Ofodile another dimension on offense, sprinted for a touchdown in a downpour and Yates completed the Tiger scoring with a 60-yard scamper to pay turf 29 seconds before the end of the third quarter.
“This goes way back to my playing days, but when you talk about time of possession and turnover margin and those types of things, it’s explosive plays that carry the day,” said Ofodile, who played for the University of Missouri and in the NFL. “When I played, whoever had the most 25-yard-plus plays won the game. The same holds true today.”
Tiger defensive coordinator Jim Sardo’s starters played through three quarters before Ofodile pulled the plug in the fourth and put in the subs. Junior running back Logan Wilson and Coleman scored rushing touchdowns five minutes apart for the Owls.
“(The Festus) linebackers are very athletic,” Freeman said. “I talked to Coach Sardo after the game and told him their D-line is one of the best I’ve seen in a while. They play pretty disciplined, and they’re athletic and physical.”
Friday, Windsor has a nonconference home game against Clayton (1-2) and Festus hosts De Soto (1-2, 0-1) in a MAFC contest.