Mclouth ? Kevin Stewart should remember the last time McLouth High’s football team walked off the field victorious.

He watched it live.

“I don’t know,” the Bulldog junior said, trying to recall that day during his final year of middle school in 2001. “I know I was there, but I just don’t remember.”

Memories become cloudy after three years (the last Bulldog win was Oct. 12, 2001, in a 45-0 romp over Burlingame), not to mention five (McLouth’s last home win was Oct. 8, 1999, a 30-26 triumph over Valley Falls).

However, after Friday’s monumental 20-8 victory at Horton, the Bulldogs are ready to give McLouth residents another long-lasting memory in a 7 p.m. matchup tonight against Wathena.

“It would be a lot more meaningful tonight,” Stewart said. “To get that one on our home field would help get that monkey off our backs.”

Last week’s win snapped a 20-game losing streak, but second-year coach Harry Hester said the key for his team was to avoid the hype.

“I leave it to the press to talk about streaks,” Hester said. “It’s there, they’re aware, but we don’t dwell on it. Our focus is strictly on Wathena this week. And, after all, 2-0 in the Delaware Valley League sounds better than breaking a streak.”

If the Bulldogs can rush with the same kind of success they did against Horton — and play with the added confidence a win can create — then Wathena might have its hands full. Wathena lost its opener, 39-14, to Jackson Heights on Friday and held off the Bulldogs by only a point last year.

McLouth ran for 336 yards on 38 carries against Horton. The 5-foot-11, 160-pound Stewart, who switched to his natural position of running back from quarterback this season, was the most successful rusher — accounting for 268 yards and two scores.

“It’s going to be hard to hold them down,” Hester said.

But Stewart admitted a win today could set off a celebration that rivaled the one McLouth natives threw in honor of former Bulldog standout Jeff Schwinn’s start in a Kansas State game last season against Marshall.

“This is the biggest thing with McLouth football since then,” Stewart said. “Who knows if we keep it going, it might even be bigger.”