Photo Credit: Joe Andrews/Special to PrepsKC 
Pleasant Hill wanted revenge.
Warrensburg wanted to prove its Week 7 win wasn’t fluke.
Naturally, something had to give in Pleasant Hill’s impressive 55-14 thumping of Warrensburg at Eklund Field on Friday.
Leading 13-7 early in the second quarter, Pleasant Hill got an important stop on third down, forcing the Tigers to punt deep inside their own territory.
As Pleasant Hill’s Lane Snyder came screaming around the wall and blocking the punt, the loose ball was picked up by Brady Roe, who returned it for the touchdown to give the Roosters a commanding 21-7 lead.
“I think (13-7) for their offense is nothing (to overcome),” Pleasant Hill coach Justin Hamilton said. “That was my fear. … ‘How fast were they going to go down and score? How many times are we going to get the ball back before halftime?’
“Getting the blocked punt and then after that we stopped them again and called some timeouts and went down and scored. Then getting the interception right before right before halftime was really big for us, too.”
Coming into the game, Hamilton knew what his defense was up against. The Tigers offense came into the game averaging over 40 points per game.
The key was how do you slow down a high-power offense led by the Metro’s leading passer in Kobe Westphal?
The answer — a lot of delayed pressures and timed blitzes by Pleasant Hill’s athletic secondary.
“He (Westphal) made us look silly the first time we played them,” Hamilton said. “We were showing blitz and bailing out, we were blitzing from depth. We were switching in and out of different coverages, just to frustrate him a little bit.”
The delayed pressures led to one of the biggest plays in the game. Leading 28-7 at the end of the second quarter and looking for another stop, Pleasant Hill dialed up a blitz, which forced Westphal to underthrow Quinn Conley.
The stop led to yet another second quarter touchdown as Bo Daniel hit Tyler Wise on a quick slant for a 53-yard touchdown to go up 35-7 just before the end of the first half.
“The focus coming into this game was getting six stops,” Roe said. “We got six stops in the first half and that’s what led to this win.”
With the win, the Roosters will host former powerhouse Jefferson City in the Class 4, District 5 championship at Eklund Field.
Hamilton said it’ll be an honor to played a storied program like Jeff City for a right to advance to the Class 4 quarterfinals.
“That’s what somebody said (to me) ‘Did you ever think they’d ever be in your district? And I said ‘No, I did not.’ … they play a really tough schedule. They play all of those Columbia Class 5, Class 6 schools. It’s kind of hard to tell right now. … they’ve some really good football teams.”
