CRESTVIEW — There was no drama Friday night as Crestview High School hosted Fort Walton Beach in a District 3-6A football game.
Technically, at 0-2 in district play, the loser would still have a chance to make the playoffs. The winner would be in much better shape heading into the final district games in two weeks.
Playing perhaps their best game of the season, it was the Bulldogs making a statement with a 48-7 win.
“When you play turnover free ball you have a chance, and we played turnover free ball,” Crestview Coach Tim Hatten said. “We limited our penalties. We made pretty good decisions at our quarterback position.
“Andrew Adkins and Marquis McClain are players that make plays and we got the ball to them. I thought Antryon Gloster ran the ball really, really hard tonight. Corey (Armstrong) gives a new dimension inside at running back.”
About the only thing that went wrong for Crestview was a missed field goal and a wide right extra point.
Crestview’s defense set the tone early when Andrew Adkins picked off a Brady Ooten pass. The Bulldogs failed to capitalize on the turnover, but the next time the Vikings (1-6, 0-2) wouldn’t be so lucky.
Armstrong, the Bulldog middle linebacker, plucked a Viking fumble out of the air and raced 25-yards for the first points of the game with 5:42 left in the opening period. Cody Traywick added the extra point and the route was on.
Any hope the Vikings fans had after only trailing 7-0 at the end of the first quarter were quickly crushed. Bulldog quarterback Rusty Moorer, who was playing in just his second game after returning from a broken hand suffered in the season opener was just getting heated up.
Moorer dissected the Viking defense with surgical precession hitting 15-of-21 passes for 248 yards in the first half.
Moorer hit Adkins with touchdown passes of 23 and 20 yards in the second quarter. Moorer also hit McClain with a 34-yard strike with 18 seconds left in the half.
Crestview (4-4, 1-1) also had a touchdown on the ground as Armstrong pounded into the end zone on an 11-yard run as the Bulldogs were up 34-0 at the half.
Crestview’s Malik Studevan returned the opening kick of the second half to the Viking 48-yard line. The Bulldogs only needed five plays to cover the distance. Moorer scored the touchdown on a 1-yard run.
The rest of the game was played with a running clock. Gloster closed out the Bulldog scoring with a 3-yard run with 7:09 left in the game. Gloster was the workhorse on the drive covering the 68 yards on six carries.
The lone Viking score came as time expired with Chase Geissel hit Alex Cum with a 13-yard touchdown pass against the Bulldog reserves.
Moorer finished the night with 272 yards passing and three touchdown passes to go along with his rushing touchdown.
Adkins had six catches for 106 yards. Matt French had five receptions for 59 yards and McClain had three receptions for 59 yards.
Gloster led Crestview in rushing with 82 yards on eight carries.
“We are starting figure out who we are,” Hatten said. “I think we were a little more talented than this group (the Vikings). We were able to put it in cruise control and that’s what good teams have got to do”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Moorer leads Crestview past Fort Walton Beach (PHOTOS)