CHICKASHA — It was certainly not the way the MacArthur Highlanders wanted to get started in their 47-9 win over Chickasha on Friday.
With two interceptions and two fumbles in the first half, you wouldn’t think that Mac had come in highly rated and were heavy favorites in this game — then things starting clicking together.
With a few forced turnovers of their own and the offensive attack of T.J. Turner and Darius Graham, the Highlanders put up a big lead after those mistakes and didn’t look back to remain undefeated at 6-0 with their big District 5A-2 battle with Duncan next week.
“I wouldn’t say we were worried, I knew we were a much better team,” Mac head coach Brett Manning said. “We just didn’t come out and play how we were capable of early. It’s a little disappointing that after such a good showing last week to put away a weaker opponent we didn’t do that this week.”
Things started off ugly early for the Highlanders, as their first two possessions ended in interceptions. However, the defense was able to hold Chickasha to just seven points after those two possessions.
Then the Highlanders went to work.
Turner got things going with a 55-yard touchdown pass to Dewayne Sanford. That’s right, the play went to Turner, who then turned downfield and fired the ball to Sanford streaking down the sideline for the score to get it to 7-6.
“I think the big turning point was then T.J. threw that touchdown pass,” Chasteen said. “I think that helped the offense out. We knew we were still in it. We weren’t down, I knew we were going to come back and pull through.”
The Highlanders would then score 41 of the next 43 points with only an intentional grounding call in the endzone for a safety being the Chicks lone respite.
A big part of that was Turner, who scored three touchdowns on passes of 25, 9 and 11 yards.
“He just finds a way to get open,” Chasteen said. “It’s like we connect. Every time I see him open I just throw him the ball and he just catches it.”
At half, MacArthur had 309 yards of total offense, while the Chicks had but 92. That was all the time the starters would see, as the second string came in to take over in the second half.
By the end of the half, Chasteen had thrown for just 116 yards, but had four scores. Turner had 88 yards and three scores on nine catches, while Darius Graham had 115 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries.
Chasteen said it’s nice to make defenses honest by giving the ball to Graham and letting things happen.
“I just like to hand it off and let him do work,” he said.
By the end of the game, MacArthur finished with 390 yards of total offense, 253 through the air and 137 on the ground. Meanwhile, Chickasha had only 151 yards of total offense.
It was also big for the Highlanders to get the second team some work and the starters some rest with that big district battle looming against Duncan on Friday in Cameron Stadium.
“That’s two weeks in a row we haven’t played our varsity in the second half at all,” Manning said. “We have a big one against Duncan , and we are looking forward to a fun week.”
And though the score was very lop-sided, the Highlanders are still somewhat unhappy with the outcome.
“I understand in the big scheme of things you can’t be on fire all the time but we are still going to demand that of them,” Manning said.