MONROE — Clarke suffered another quarterback injury Friday in a 42-0 loss to PCM, Monroe.
Freshman Rich Wilkins suffered a concussion with about 9:00 in the second quarter, after being tackled on his head.
“With (Dalton) Sweeney out with mono and Rich out, we went to our third option — Brett Moffett — and he hadn’t really had a lot of reps at quarterback,” head coach Michael Kline said. “So he was playing more on instinct and not a lot of preparation.”
Combined, Wilkins and Moffett finished 1-of-17 passing for 19 yards and four interceptions.
“Our game plan was to run the ball on them,” Kline said. “I felt like we did a decent job of it, we just weren’t consistent. I think our rushing total was the most rushing yards we had since we played West Central Valley in the second game of the season. We ran the ball more effectively, just not consistently.”
Junior Jacob Bair led the team with 46 yards rushing on six carries, while freshman Jeremy Jones totaled 43 yards on 13 carries.
PCM, dealing with a quarterback injury of its own, surprised Clarke with a different offensive style than it had prepared for.
“We didn’t expect them to play like they did,” Kline said. “They were second in the state in passing attempts, and they came out and only threw the ball about seven times. They scored two fairly quickly, and after that I thought our defense played pretty well. Our offense put us in some bad situations after that.”
Junior running back Zach Uhlenhopp did the bulk of the damage to the Indians, rushing for 140 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries.
Clarke, now 3-5 overall and 0-5 in Class 2A District 6, hosts Collins-Maxwell/Baxter on Friday before finishing the season at home against Interstate 35.
“I actually expect a lot like what we ended up seeing from PCM,” Kline said. “CMB is a spread team. They will spread you out with four receivers, but they really want to run the ball instead of throwing it. For us, it comes down to tackling better defensively, and playing more consistently on offense.”
Clarke could catch its second wind offensively, though, as starting quarterback Dalton Sweeney looks to make his return to the lineup Friday against CMB after missing the past five games with mononucleosis.