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

Oakville pummels Seckman 55-14

Tigers dominate Jaguars in Oakville’s homecoming game

The Oakville Senior High School varsity football team appears close to making a full recovery from its shaky start to the 2014 season, as the Tigers gained some much-needed confidence in a dominating 55-14 win over Seckman Friday night.

After starting the season with three consecutive losses, the Tigers have begun to hit their stride, winning three of the last four contests.

Friday’s homecoming victory over Seckman featured big performances by several players, but a few stand out for Tigers head coach Arlee Conners.

Most notable, he said, include Kobe Allen, who caught three touchdown passes; Antwan Banks, who caught two touchdown passes; and the play of quarterback Carvon Robinson, who completed 13 of 16 passes for 323 yards.

Each week, Robinson is showing more and more what he is capable of as the offense is beginning to gel, according to Conners.

“He’s definitely getting comfortable and settled, and things are starting to slow down for him out there, which is allowing us to execute a lot better,” he said. “That’s part of his progress and part of the progress of the other team because defense has been solid.

“We’ve just been waiting for our offense to step up and make some plays, and by him doing what he’s doing, it helps the offense move forward as well.”

The win over the Jaguars — like any game the Tigers play, win or lose — comes down to execution, according to Conners.

“I think for the most part we just took advantage of what they gave us and guys executed. That was pretty much what it was,” he said.

The Tigers are now 3-7 and third place in the Suburban West N conference standings. They hope to gain some ground in the standings this Friday when they take on rival Mehlville, 2-5. The Panthers are actually in second place because they have a better winning percentage in league games.

On paper, Oakville would appear to be the favorite in the contest, but Conners knows all too well that numbers don’t mean anything in a game between rivals.

He learned that last year when the Panthers upset the Tigers in the first week of the district playoffs.

“Being a rivalry game, they want to beat us more than they want to beat anybody else,” Conners said of the Panthers. “That always makes it a tough challenge, so we just got to stay focused and worry about what we are doing and … go out and play to our potential.

“Last year, we came in with the wrong attitude. We had a better record and I guess some of the kids felt that they should win because of the record. But that really doesn’t matter when you are playing against a rivalry team. We’ll make sure our guys are focused and understand that we got to go out there and make the plays happen.”

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