Winona Christian saw its football season come to an end last week.
The Stars again struggled on defense as they gave up a season-high in points and dropped a 52-26 to Centrevile on Friday night in the second round of the Class 3A playoffs.
Winona Christian finishes the season with a 4-7 record.
Head coach Ken Chandler said the Stars inability to tackle on defense once again plagued the team as it has all season.
“It wasn’t very good at all,” Chandler said. “They got up early and went cut it to 14-6 but never got any closer than that. We had a hard time tackles and were just outmanned. They were so much bigger and stronger than us. They run the ball straight at you if they can. If they played somebody bigger, they tried to throw it around. But if they played somebody smaller, they pounded you and when you least expected it, they would throw it over the top. Our kids played hard all year, they just had a hard time tackling and if you can’t tackle
Centreville jumped out to a 14-0 lead before Collin Parkinson scored on an 18-yard run.
Winona added a 23-yard run from Jake Ware and trailed 26-12 at the half.
In the second half, Parkinson scored on a 6-yard run while Ware added another score on a 3-yard run while Sam Thompson added a two-point conversion.
“I thought we moved the ball fairly well on offense,” Chandler said. “For the most part, we were able to move the football all season long. But the problem all year long is us tackling really good running backs. Coach (Shannon) Self has been here 10 years and I’ve been doing this for a long time and we just couldn’t fix. We were really young on defense. And we had a lot of injuries over there and when you’ve only got 18 payers, it’s really hard to overcome. We just have to go to work and get bigger and stronger this offseason.”
The Stars had 328 yards of total offense with 284 yards rushing and 44 yards passing. Ware had 128 yards rushing on 18 carries while Parkinson had 80 yards on seven carries. Brannon Hill had 76 yards rushing on six carries and was 7-of-15 passing for 44 yards. Reese Johnson also had three catches for 32 yards while Parkinson had two catches for 12 yards.
Bryce Harville led the defense with 10 tackles while Hill had six tackles. Parkinson, Ware, Johnny Green, Braxton Leach and Alex Crisp each had four tackles while Will Irwin had three tackles. Johnson, Brayden Stanford, Jase Osborne and Wyatt Merriweather each had two tackles apiece.
