“It feels good to get that first win under our belt. Now we’re just going to have to keep working and stay humble and stay hungry and keep on trying to get as many as we can get,” Marple said.
Burton set up two of the Rebels’ first three scores with a run-stuffing tackle on a Taylor fourth-down attempt and a blocked punt. He also caused one fumble and recovered another in the third quarter, when the Cardinals had six of their nine fumbles.
“It’s always good to do something for the team. I’m happy, and we got a win; that’s really all I’m worried about right now,” he said.
Burton also said he believes Casey (1-1) was even better on offense than it was on defense, where they blanked Taylor (1-1) for the second consecutive game in the series after four consecutive losses to the Cardinals from 2006-09.
“I know we shut them out, but I really feel like we did a lot better on offense, just the way we moved the ball and kept moving. We didn’t slow down at all,” Burton said.
Marple said there was also a lot to like about the defense, which never let Taylor advance beyond the Casey 30-yard line. The Cardinals netted 65 yards and four first downs on their first two series, but they finished with only 165 yards and nine first downs.
“We said to win this ballgame we needed to be really sound on defense and everybody do their job, and we were able to dictate and make them do what we wanted them to do on defense,” Marple said. “They put their first little drive together, and we weren’t doing some things right, and then we buckled down and were sound on defense, made them stretch it to the sideline.”
On offense, Alex Bolin rushed for 153 yards, Rance Carman ran for another 90 and Bolin and quarterback Will Hatter ran for two touchdowns each for Casey.
The Rebels were held to five yards on its first series but got at least one first down on each of their next eight possessions, six of which ended with touchdowns.
“Our offense looks like were just running the ball up the middle all the time, but were reading people up front. There’s some stuff happening in there. A lot of times it takes us a series to be able to see how people are lining up, and they came out a little bit different than what we prepared for this week, so it took us a series to get adjusted,” Marple said.
A 58-yard romp by Carman to the Taylor 8-yard line set up Casey’s first score, Bolin ran 49 yards for the second and Burton’s blocked punt set the Rebels up at the 10 and led to the third, which gave them a 20-0 lead midway through the second quarter.
Turnovers led to two of Casey’s three second-half touchdowns, including the first career score by backup quarterback Wyatt Bishop, who took over after the Rebels took a 26-0 four plays after the second-half kickoff and two plays after a fumble recovery by Bolin.
“We got to get our backup quarterback in and get him almost a whole second half of real-time game experience. He’s going to be the quarterback next year,” Marple said. “We’re thin and we were up some points, and there was no point in having (Hatter) out there.”
The game was delayed for about 15 minutes in the third quarter after Taylor’s Conner Fair was injured. Fair briefly lay motionless on the field before he was immobilized and taken by ambulance to Casey County Hospital, but he was able to move his hands and feet before he was taken away.
STATISTICS
At Liberty
Taylor County 0 0 0 0 — 0
Casey County 7 13 12 7 — 39
First Quarter
Casey — Will Hatter 9 run (Tyler Hayes kick), 3:40.
Second Quarter
Casey — Alex Bolin 49 run (kick failed), 10:27.
Casey — Hatter 5 run (Hayes kick), 7:34.
