‘I don’t text them’: Season begins with Moniteau vs Karns City football for just 11th time
KARNS CITY — Before the gridiron is showered in light, text chats go dark.
Karns City and Moniteau football open their schedules against one another for just the fourth time in 15 seasons at the Gremlins’ Diehl Stadium on Friday night. Phones haven’t been pinging with notifications, not as it pertains to any mingling between players from each side.
“I don’t text them this week,” Karns City junior Hunter Scherer said after his team’s practice Wednesday night. “I’m afraid stuff is going to get a little heated back and forth.”
Memes, jokes and back-to-school chatter aren’t being exchanged.
“Not this week,” Moniteau senior Kurt Gindhart said earlier in the day.
Gindhart hasn’t beaten the Gremlins, even at the youth level. Neither has teammate Blaine Jamison, a junior. The latter is pausing any benevolence with anyone wearing purple.
“I’ve talked to some of them, not many though,” Jamison said. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends anymore — not until this week is over.”
The communities are intertwined. Families have members in both school districts, the parents work together and their children are raised playing on the same youth sports teams.
Crossing paths so early in the campaign is an exciting opportunity, especially for the Warriors.
“It’s Week 1,” Moniteau coach Bob Rottman said. “In one way, (there’s) no better way to start a season than to start off with a big game like that. On the other side, sometimes you think you’d like to have them a little later on to get some games under your belt — because it’s a big game and you’d like to work out some bugs and stuff prior to seeing them.”
The Warriors downed Karns City 20-14 in 2018, Rottman’s first season at the helm. The Gremlins’ Scherer was a fifth-grader then.
“I’ve seen the tradition of us beating them,” Scherer said. “I want to keep that tradition going.”
Karns City, which went 5-6 last year, brings a business-like approach to the tilt. Over the past 15 seasons, the Gremlins’ only other defeats to Moniteau came in 2011 — twice. The first was a season-opening 26-24 loss, the second came in a rematch in the District 9 championship that Moniteau won 26-12.
The two teams faced each other to start a season the first seven years of the series (1957-63) and also 2010, 2011 and 2020.
“It’s a rivalry game for sure,” Gremlins coach Joe Sherwin said. “More so, it’s just the first game. We’re ready to get started. We’re ready to go against somebody different and, (it) being Moniteau, maybe it’s a little bit more heightened.
“What we’ve focused on this week is getting off to a good start this year.”
The Warriors (1-9 in 2023), though, are out to put a stop to their program’s skid against their neighbors.
“It’s been a while,” Gindhart said. “It would really (start) our season (with) happy thoughts. We’d be real hyped because we just won the rivalry game.”
“It would be a special day,” Jamison said.
