Kane Pyles

The Paden City Wildcat football team kicked off the Labor Day weekend by playing their home opener against Clay-Battelle at Berger Field in front of a large hometown crowd on Aug. 30. The Cee Bee’s brought their “A” game though and wound up downing the ‘Cats, 41-6 when all was said and done.

“They have a very good football team,” said Wildcat head coach Brent Croasmun. “They’ve got a lot of size to them and were a tough defensive team.”

Clay Battelle opened up the scoring in the first period of play and scored five times in the first half to take a demanding 35-0 lead in the game.

With 4:38 to play in the third, Wildcat junior Brandon Cross took a one yarder in for Paden City’s first and only score of the game.

The Cee Bee’s topped off their scoring with one more touchdown to put the final score at 41-6.

“We made to many mistakes in the first half,” Croasmun said. “But we came out more settled in the second and played a much better game.”

Clay Battelle achieved 12 first downs in the game and gained 154 rushing yards on 26 carries and had 240 passing yards for a total of 394 yards in the win. The visitors lost two of four fumbles and were penalized 19 times in the contest costing them 147 yards.

Paden City had six first downs, rushed for 154 yards on 35 carries and had 51 passing yards for a total of 116 yards in the game. The ‘Cats lost four-of-four fumbles and were only penalized twice for 15 yards.

Junior Kane Pyles rushed six times to gain 33 yards; Cross carried the ball 10 times for 26 yards and one TD; Zach Heasley had nine carries for nine yards; and freshman Hayden Hizer had four carries for four yards.

Heasley completed six of nine passes for 51 yards.

In the receiving department, Cross had four catches for 37 yards and Devon Price caught two passes for 14 yards.

Defensively, Cross had seven tackles and one interception; Spencer Billings was credited with seven tackles; Luke Cooper had six tackles and recovered a fumble; Hizer had six tackles, one fumble recovery and one interception; and Logan Carroll had five tackles.

“The kids played hard,” the coach said. “We made some mistakes, but we’ll learn from that. It takes nothing away from their effort.”

The Wildcats will travel to Van on Friday.