De Soto ? It didn’t take long for the De Soto Wildcats to prove they were the superior team Friday night against Ottawa.

On the second play of the game, De Soto running back Dylan Burford lined up in the slot left, and on a misdirection play ran up the middle before darting to the right edge. Sixty-one yards later the Wildcats had a seven-point lead and cruised from there to a 33-7 homecoming victory against Ottawa.

“We wanted to win it for the seniors,” Burford said.

On De Soto’s second possession quarterback Logan Clark hit wideout Jamel Townsend on a 35-yard pass to the 16 yard line. Two plays later, Clark busted through the middle and plowed through two Ottawa defenders at the goal line to push De Soto’s lead to 13-0. In five plays, De Soto scored two touchdowns.

“That was something we needed to do,” De Soto coach Brad Scott said. “We needed to come out at the start of the game and establish ourselves and impose our will on somebody.

“We’ve been preaching on it and haven’t got it done for whatever reason. We’re trying to figure out and the mistakes we’ve made the first five weeks and correct them.”

The De Soto defense held Ottawa to only two first downs in the first half. And late in the first quarter, the De Soto special teams put six on the board when De Soto blocked an Ottawa punt and Josh Fisher rumbled 16 yards to the end zone to push De Soto’s lead to 20-0.

In the second quarter, De Soto running back Mark England scored the Wildcats third touchdown of the half off a 13-yard run to put the Wildcats ahead 26-0 at the break.

England had seven carries for 22 yards, Burford had three carries for 68 yards and Clark had six rushes for 58 yards to lead the De Soto ground attack, most of which came on misdirection plays.

“Part of it was we thought we had a good match up with our speed,” Scott said. “But the other thing was when you get a defense that is going to crowd the line of scrimmage and bring everybody like tonight, we want to get them going one way and come back the other way with our speed and I thought we did that tonight.

“When we get a team that lays off and plays back, we’re going to run it up in there and pound it at them. We take what they give us, but we really got clicking early. Our offensive line did an outstanding job tonight and defensively we didn’t give them an inch.”

In the second half, De Soto threw an interception on its first play from scrimmage and Ottawa later capitalized on a 20-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Bellinger to Dustin Burnett.

But De Soto answered right back seven plays later on Clinton Davis’ 13-yard run.

“We preach to our kids that it doesn’t matter when you get your number called,” Scott said. “If it’s one person more than another, it doesn’t make any difference. But when your number gets called, you go make a play.”

The Wildcats likely could have had more points on the night, but Scott began substituting backups in the second quarter.

De Soto will open district play next Friday night at home against St. James.

“I’m sure they are going to want to come in here and be 1-0 in districts just like we want to be,” Scott said. “We’ll have to play our best football game.”