Chaffee football rolls past Crystal City 39-19 in season opener

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- The Chaffee football team opened its campaign with a win for a second consecutive season, rolling past visiting Crystal City 39-19 on Friday in Chaffee, Missouri.

It was the first time since last year's opener -- a 20-14 victory over Grandview -- that the Red Devils held an opponent under 20 points.

Chaffee (1-0) controlled much of the game, posting 455 total yards of offense while allowing just 172 yards to the Hornets (0-1).

Red Devil sophomore Dalton Wilson nearly matched that number himself, as he ran five times for 164 yards and two touchdowns. Uziah Beggs added 146 rushing yards on 12 carries with three scores.

Chaffee quarterback Landon Tenkhoff, coming off a freshman season in which he ran for 1,300 yards, carried the ball 14 times for 62 yards. He also caught a 17-yard touchdown pass from Brennan Miller in the first half.

Austin Copeland had a first-half 39-yard TD reception for the hosts.

Of course, Chaffee coach Charlie Vickery found more cause for concern than the score or the numbers might indicate.

"A lot of things to clean up," Vickery said. "We had way too many penalties and we left points on the board. ... We've just got to do a better job. And we let them have too good field position, including on both their [first-half] scores. All in all, we got a win out of it but still lots to work on. Our kids played hard. I can't take that away from them. We just made some first-game mistakes, and, hopefully, we'll make a big improvement from this week to next week."

Vickery attributed some of the field-position challenges to not getting the ball deep enough on kickoffs, plus failing to recover an onside kick. Crystal City rarely sustained drives when forced to traverse greater stretches of the field.

The window of opportunity was still left open midway through the game, though. Chaffee pushed deep into Hornet territory late in the first half, getting two shots at the end zone from the red zone in the second quarter's final minute. But a wide-open Copeland couldn't get control of a Tenkhoff pass in the back of the end zone on third down, and the QB couldn't connect with a wideout on fourth down, leaving the Red Devils up 32-13 at halftime.

"We told them [at halftime],'Hey, they're going to get the ball first, so, No. 1, we've got to get a big stop,'" Vickery said. "And then we got the ball in there."

The home side quickly forced the Hornets into a three-and-out to open the third quarter before putting the game away for good. Tenkhoff hit Copeland for a gain to the Hornet 2-yard line before Beggs rumbled into the end zone to make the score 39-13 at 7:32 of the third.

Crystal City got six points back on an 11-yard catch-and-run TD with 8:06 to play, but Chaffee's lead was comfortable.

The Red Devils will now host SEMO West Conference foe Portageville on Friday. The Bulldogs got the better of Chaffee, 49-14, a year ago.