South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Kirkwood Pioneers dominate football Flyers

The Lindbergh High School varsity football team opened its 2014 campaign Friday night against a former rival, but failed to put its best product on the field.

The Kirkwood Pioneers dominated the Flyers 48-9 in their first meeting in several years. The two teams used to play each other regularly, but since the conference split they rarely face each other anymore.

Lindbergh head coach Tom Beauchamp said he would shoulder the blame for his team’s opening night performance.

“… Our kids, I don’t feel like I had them prepared right,” he told the Call. “I don’t think I was ready. I don’t think I had them ready, and it’s my fault and I’ll take all the blame.

“I just think we need to make a lot of improvement this week and improve and fix the things we are not doing correctly. And hopefully (this Friday) we’ll come out and have a better performance.”

Kirkwood attacked early and often, scoring four times, twice per quarter, in the first half while the Flyers scored just three points in the second quarter. However, Lindbergh’s points came from a very impressive 42-yard field goal by Logan Offner.

“He could have hit it from 50-plus (yards). It cleared the top of the crossbars. He has a great leg. It could be the school record. We are checking,” Beauchamp said.

Trailing 28-3 heading into the third quarter, the Flyers tried to ramp things up, but couldn’t stop the Pioneers, who outscored Lindbergh 21-6 in the second half.

Lindbergh’s lone touchdown came with the Flyers deep in the red zone on a 1-yard reception by Offner from quarterback Sam Neumeier.

A coaching staff learns a great deal when they see their team in an actual game for the first time, according to Beachamp, and the Flyers’ staff intends to make the most of that knowledge.

“There’s a lot of little things you pick up on, when you’ve got to play a game tempo, as opposed to a jamboree,” he said. There’s a lot of little things, a lot of details and I think overall we didn’t do horrible on details. We just didn’t do some of the things we should do at a higher level.

“And Kirkwood. I wouldn’t take anything away from kirkwood they are a very good ball team. They’ve got plenty of speed and size and they play hard and coach (Matt) Irvin had them ready to play.”

The Flyers are spending their week getting a game plan to take to Pattonville Friday as they try to get their game back to a higher level.

“… They are going to be a very quick team and very tough up front, and I think we’ve got to solidify the way we are doing things up front, as well as some of the reads and some of the things were doing offensively,” Beauchamp said. “So just like everything else in life, it’s one of those things where hopefully you get a lot of improvement from the first time you do something to the second time you do it.”

Lindbergh is facing some adversity with inexperience, but Beauchamp hopes his new players can leapfrog the experience hurdle.

“We moved the ball well,” he said. “We actually did pretty good on offense when we got rolling, even though the score didn’t indicate that and we gave up some silly stuff.”

The speed of the game “takes some of the young ones by surprise and that’s something we’ll hopefully rectify (this) week. And they’ll understand the sense of urgency it takes to play in a varsity game,” Beauchamp added.

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