Tigers sharp (eventually) in 41-20 rout of St. Pius X

Caruthersville High School football coach Dom Guglielmo watches his team compete last season at Hopke Field in Caruthersville.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

Having not participated in a jamboree earlier this month, third-year Caruthersville High School football coach Dom Guglielmo expected his team to not be perfect in its regular season opening game Friday at Hopke Field against St. Pius X (Festus).

Despite facing some “adversity,” the Tigers were more than impressive – eventually – in all four phases of the game, according to Guglielmo, as he noted “offense, defense, special teams, and attitude,” and they prevailed 41-20.

“I’m happy with the grit that we showed,” Guglielmo said. “I’m happy with our ability to face adversity on the level of the ups and downs because we did face ups and downs.”

The game involved far more “ups” for the hosts than it did “downs,” to Caruthersville’s credit.

The Tigers (1-0) opened the game by giving up an onside kick, but its defense, which was stellar all evening, forced a four-and-out, which was followed on the next defensive series where senior defensive back Jermonte Alexander picked off the first of three interceptions.

“Jermonte is smart within the game of football,” Guglielmo said. “He understands how the blocking fits into everything. He understands his role.

“Sometimes, he says ‘You threw me the ball, but you should have thrown him the ball.’”

Alexander wasn’t saying that to the Lancers’ quarterbacks.

He picked off the three passes and totaled over 170 yards on those returns, two of which went for touchdowns.

“He understands how things get broken down,” Guglielmo said. “He can read the quarterbacks eyes like nobody’s business.”

Alexander’s first interception led to the Tigers taking a 7-0 advantage after a burst by junior runner Sammy Bryant, who tallied 179 yards and four scores.

“One of the encouraging things was,” Guglielmo said, “of the mistakes that we made, they are easily fixable. Once we saw that we made them, once we learn from them, they weren’t expensive mistakes.”

The second of Alexander’s interceptions put Caruthersville up 14-0, but the Lancers (0-1) answered with a score to cut their deficit 10 14-6.

“St. Pius is going to give a lot of teams problems,” Guglielmo said. “They’re a physical football team. They were young in a couple of spots, but those older kids? I’m telling you; they were ready to compete.”

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In the second half, Bryant scored twice to put his team ahead 28-6, but St. Pus X scored to make it a 28-12 game.

The Lancer defense intercepted Tiger quarterback Ryan Guest and returned the pick 100 yards for a score to pull within 28-20.

Guest was picked off three times, but he did complete 11 of his 16 passes for 104 yards.

“When you are going out there for the first game,” Guglielmo said of Guest, “things happen.”

Guglielmo said there were aspects to Guests’ throws he could learn from, but overall, the coach was very pleased with the high completion rate.

“Not every pick is a bad pick,” Guglielmo said.

The Caruthersville special teams were very efficient, as junior kicker Jermaine Caruthers made all five extra-point kicks.

Defensively, the Tigers got 13 tackles from senior Oscar Dominguez and 11 more from junior Jackson Napier.

Junior Jared Hudgens had a fumble recovery while senior Kenyon Bogan and sophomore Chazmon Thomas had eight stops each.

Alexander added 86 yards receiving and sophomore Josiah Lockridge added 18 yards through the air.

Caruthersville will open Bootheel Conference play on Friday at 7 p.m. at Malden (0-1).