The helmet decals were firmly pressed, the green Jolly Roger painted on the middle of the field at Pirate Stadium.

The only imperfection was the scoreboard malfunction throughout the game.

The 2024 high school football season arrived sooner than usual, with the Perryville Pirates winning 28-14 over Fredericktown on Thursday, Aug. 29, in Perryville, Mo.

“It was a very physical and aggressive, kind of a little dirty, a little chippy game,” Perryville head coach Brent Roth said. “Glad I get to go home with a win on this one.”

Turnovers could mean everything in a football game. The defense snagged two interceptions and the team won by two touchdowns. Nickolas Kramer picked off the opposing quarterback in the first half and Brett Bohnert snagged his INT in the second half.

“The tip drill obviously paid off,” Roth said. “We’re pretty high on our defense and I thought we could have done a little better.”

The Pirates rode the waves of momentum from the very beginning. Perryville scored on the first offensive play on a 50-yard touchdown run from Drew Lueckel to take a 7-0 lead.

“When you watch the film, you try to see what’s going to work,” Roth said. “And I had said it probably 10 times, ‘This is going to score. It’s gonna score a touchdown.’ And when it did, it made me feel really good.

“That was huge,” he added. “If we don’t get that, it would be a totally different game. So we came out ready to roll from the first snaps. It’s what you got to do.”

The Pirates scored their next two touchdowns by marching down the field and punching the ball through the goal line. Both Bohnert and Barrett Wheeler carried the ball regularly for the Pirates, with Wheeler getting the lion’s share and both touchdowns.

“They’re a bit of ‘thunder and lightning’ but I guess you could say they both have a little thunder in them,” Roth said. “That doesn’t happen without the O-line. The O-line struggled in pass protection but our run blocking was really good.”

The Pirates could not contain the Blackcats forever. Fredericktown finally found itself on the board with a touchdown pass from quarterback Cole Starkey to receiver Derek Irby to cut the Perryville lead to 20-7 late in the third quarter.

Kayd Luckey was recently named the starting quarterback after his performance in the Midnight Game and Jamborees. However, the passing was sparse and the highlight of his work was keeping the ball and running 70 yards for a rushing touchdown of his own to give the Pirates a 28-7 lead.

“We wanted to be a balanced offense but we just kind of took what was working,” Roth said. “I thought we could have gotten the ball down the field but we had trouble with pass protection. [Maddox Knepper] on Fredericktown was an animal on their D-line there. So we just couldn’t get the pass protection we wanted and the run game was working.”

Fredericktown scored a garbage time touchdown with five minutes left in the fourth quarter on a 14-yard pass from quarterback Easton Wood to Irby.

The Pirates rode Wheeler again to kill the clock and their first win of the season was secured.

Perryville will travel to DeSoto on Friday, Sept. 6.