District play begins in Oklahoma’s panhandle

The top-ranked Guthrie BlueJays are set to make the five-hour trip to Guymon to begin district play on Friday evening. The Jays will be greeted by a young Tigers team searching for their first win.

Guthrie will enter Oklahoma’s panhandle with a 3-0 record with wins over Duncan, Ponca City and Enid. On the other side, Guymon (0-3) is coming off a homecoming loss to Hugton, KS last week with a week one loss to Kingfisher and Liberal, KS in week two.

The game is set for a 7 p.m. kick. The radio pregame show begins at 6:30 p.m. on 105.1 FM or at Guthrie Sports Page.

Head coach Mike Taylor is adding discipline and a hard-working mentality to a program that has a hard time of collecting wins. The Tigers are 5-45 in the past five seasons and the jump to Class 5A has not benefited one of the smallest schools in Class 5A.

Taylor, coaching in his first season in Guymon, has had to replace four offensive lineman from a season ago and doing so by inserting a new offensive scheme with the jet offense.

Looking to take advantage of the offense is quarterback Austin Stonecipher. The senior appears to be the biggest threat with his ability to run the ball.

Guymon will be challenged by a BlueJay defense that has allowed a total of 47 yards on the ground and all while only giving up 35 points in three games.

Senior lineman Trevor Blassingame, along with linebackers Rowdy Reihs and Beau Davis, lead the team with 25 tackles each. Blassingame has added three sacks.

Guymon’s defense will show a 4-6 look in hopes to show more speed and hopefully eliminating teams from piling up points. Last season they allowed teams to score 50-plus points in seven of their 10 games and so far are allowing 51.6 points per game which does not bold well with Guthrie averaging 48 per game.

Senior linebacker Carter Hudson is the leader of the group and will try to maintain a Guthrie offense that been able to run at will to begin the season.

Guthrie impressively is running the ball for an average 256 yards per game against two 6A schools and a 5A top 15 team. The coaching staff has been pleased with the offensive line and their ability to allow the backs to find holes between the tackles.

Last week Kai Callins and Idae Alexander each went over 100 yards rushing with 177 and 101, respectively. Callins has gone over 100 yards in each of the three games and has added eight scores to go with Alexander’s six scores.

Perhaps, one positive, as well a negative, for Guymon this season is their tremendous home schedule. This season Kingfisher, Guthrie, Deer Creek and Carl Albert will be making the long, long trip to Guymon. As one coach in Guymon said, “it’s a great home schedule, but unfortunately all those teams are really good.”