Timberwolves off to 2-0 start with road win in Red Oak

Red Oak landed the first punch, but Southwest Valley delivered the knockout.
After surrendering a first quarter interception return for a touchdown, the Timberwolves shut down the Tigers and rattled off 34 straight points on their way to a convincing 34-7 victory in non-conference football Friday at Russ Benda Field in Red Oak.
Following last week’s 35-18 win over Panorama in the “zero week” opener, Coach Keegan Longabaugh said his team took a big step in moving to 2-0 on the season.
“We cleaned up a lot of penalties,” the coach said. “You know last week we just had a lot of jitter penalties, we had a lot of false starts, a few holdings, just a lot of things we knew we needed to clean up. For the most part we cleaned that up. It’s just we work a lot on our two-minute drill every week and we kind of crumbled there at the end of the first half on that so we really are going to work on that a little bit more this next week, just in case that ends up happening again.
“But for the most part, we really feel our passing game took a huge step in the right direction. We just need to get our running game back that we had last week.”
Both teams got off to slow starts offensively. The Tigers got on the board first when Jackson Perdue stepped in front of a Wyatt Shires pass and returned it 35-yards for the game’s first touchdown.
But Southwest Valley would bounce right back less than a minute later. Taking Walker Bissell’s 61-yard touchdown and the point-after on the ensuing possession would knot the score at 7-7.
It wouldn’t be the Timberwolves – nor Bissell’s – last big play of the night.
After forcing a punt on the Tigers’ next possession, Bissell hauled in a pass from Shires and raced in from 13 yards out to cap a five-play, 54-yard drive to make it 14-7.
After the Southwest Valley defense held on a fourth-and-10 at their own 34, Shires engineered a drive he capped himself on a 6-yard keeper to make it 21-7 at the 21-7 at the half.
Out of halftime, the Timberwolves turned the ball over on their opening possession, but Red Oak was unable to move the ball. Southwest Valley scored three plays later on Shires’ 70-yard hook-up with Bissell. They would miss the extra-point but led 27-7 midway through the third frame.
The score would remain that way into the fourth quarter.
Southwest Valley added an insurance TD late in the fourth quarter when Bissell hauled in his third TD grab of the night, this time from 21 yards out.
Bissell was a menace all game long for the Timberwolves. The senior hauled in four passes for 138 yards and rushed for 121 yards and a TD while wrapping up four tackles on defense and rarely leaving the field.
“Walker’s just a ‘guy,’ he’s an athlete that the game has really slowed down for,” Longabaugh said. “It’s just really nice to see.

If there is a 50-50 ball, you feel like it’s more of a 60-40 from our perspective.”
Shires finished 7-of-15 passing with three TDs. He also added 60 yards and a TD on the ground.
For the game the Southwest Valley tallied 399 yards, 207 through the air and 192 on the ground.
But it was on the defensive side where the Timberwolves most impressed their coach. They limited Red Oak to 71 total yards of offense and forced three turnovers.
Longabaugh called his team’s defensive play “stellar.”
“We talk about that pick-6 we threw, and you didn’t know how the kids were going to respond,” he said. “You know you look at a kid like (junior defensive back) Kaden Greenwalt. He was running around with his hair on fire. He was a guy, not just with his play, but he was very vocal trying to get guys amped up no matter when it was, from first quarter on. He took a huge step in leadership role. Defensively, we gave up some plays, but we got down to inside the 30 and the guys really stiffened up there.”
Greenwalt led the defensive with seven tackles, including six solo stops. Shires added a tackle and picked off two passes.
Southwest Valley and Red Oak both head on the road for district match ups Friday. The Timberwolves are at ACGC while the Tigers head to AHSTW. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. in both games.