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Panthers look for hard work to pay off with wins in 2020

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After finishing a winless 2019 season for a young Mountain Grove football program, a special focus was placed on weight lifting and conditioning in the offseason to get the young athletes stronger to ensure more success in 2020.

Early on, Mountain Grove coaches and players are seeing the benefits of this focus in training camp and look forward to better in-game results as the Panthers get ready to host an always tough Fair Grove squad on Friday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m.

After their home opener, they will travel to Caruthersville, where it is expected only a limited number of Panthers’ fans will be able to attend the game due to COVID-19 restrictions at their district. This game will be on Friday, Sep. 4.

The remaining schedule includes Sep. 11 at Ava, Sep. 18 home against Willow Springs, on the road at Cabool Sep. 2 and at Liberty on Oct. 2. They then have back-to-back home games with Salem Oct. 9 and Houston on Oct. 16 before ending the regular season schedule in Thayer on Oct. 23.

Five Panthers are returning this season after earning All-South Central Association honors a season ago.

Defensively, the squad is led by senior Alex Casas, a second team All-SCA defensive back who had 54 tackles, two fumble recoveries and one interception in 2019.

Brendan Rogers will anchor the linebacking corps after the junior earned honorable mention All-SCA honors last season after having 69 tackles, one sack and one interception.

He’s expected to also be a key contributor on the offensive side of the ball and is likely to handle the punting duties.

Other key returning defensive players will be sophomore Hunter Means (DL), junior Trenton Bevan (LB), senior Tyron Volner (DL), sophomore Hollen Glenn (CB), senior Xander Goins (LB), sophomore Jakob Norman (DL) and senior Anthony Peterson (DL).

Offensively, look for the Panthers to throw the ball more this season with sophomore quarterback Tyson Elliott taking over behind center. In limited time last year, he had 344 yards passing.

Glenn and Rogers will get the ball fed to them at times this season. Glenn had 211 yards rushing and 125 yards receiving in 2019 while Rogers had 114 yards rushing and 131 yards receiving.

Jase Dowden will be a key target for Elliott as the junior has 274 yards receiving a year ago. The tight end was an honorable mention All-SCA selection last year.

Up front, both Means and Peterson were honorable mention All-SCA selections on the offensive line.