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The Westwood Rockets went up the mountain and took care of business at Grundy County on Friday night, opening the 2025 campaign with a 28-6 victory in their only non-conference game of the season.

Westwood spotted Grundy County six points on the Yellow Jackets’ first offensive possession, but the Rockets scored 28 unanswered points the rest of the way.

“I was happy with our offense,” Coach Matt Mueller said after the win. “The way that (Grundy) was able to control the ball and eat the clock against us and then for us to still score as many touchdowns as we did, just goes to show how much of a quick strike offense we can be.”

Grundy County’s first drive killed over six minutes of game clock, and the Yellow Jackets marched 55 yards to score the game’s first points.

“We have to get much better defensively,” Mueller said. “We can’t let other teams eat the clock like that. It was a great game plan by Grundy County, eat clock and get the offense off the field, it’s exactly what I would’ve done… Tonight, we started out flat, and that’s on me. I need to reexamine how we get things going, because we didn’t have much fire lit under us at the start.”

Westwood responded well on their first turn of the football, highlighted by a couple of big first down runs by Hayes Shemwell and Weston Rodderick of 26 yards and 14 yards respectively.

On their sixth play of the drive, and first of the second quarter, Shemwell sneaked in from four yards out to put Westwood on the board. A pass from Shemwell to Luke Christian for two points put the Rockets up 8-6, and from that point, they never looked back.

The Yellow Jackets went on another lengthy eight-play drive, but couldn’t get past their own 46 with a turnover on downs, giving Westwood the ball back and in decent field position.

Westwood committed holding penalties on their next two plays, pushing them back to their own 44, but on the third play, Shemwell connected with Christian on a short pass, and Christian raced 56 yards upfield for a score. Aidyn Jones caught a pass on the two-point conversion, and the Rockets assumed a 10-point lead.

Grundy County’s next possession started on their own 22-yard line and gained 16 yards in four plays, but the clock ran out and the Rockets took their 16-6 lead into the halftime break.

The Rockets received the ball at the Grundy 48 following a kick-out-of-bounds penalty on the Yellow Jackets, but on their first play of the second half, the Rockets committed another holding penalty, pushing them back to their own 45.

This didn’t deter Jones, who broke through on a 44-yard scamper to the Grundy County 11. Shemwell ran for seven on the next play, and on the fourth play, Rodderick hit paydirt for six. The Rockets failed on the two-point conversion, but still went up 22-6.

Grundy County followed with the longest drive of the ballgame. The Yellow Jackets started on the Westwood 31, but could only reach the 15, even after 12 plays.

Westwood’s next drive, which started in the third quarter and ended in the fourth, was the Rockets’ only scoreless drive of the night, ending in a three-and-out and a punt to their own 31.

Seven plays later, the Rockets had the football again, thanks to an interception by Jones that was returned to the Westwood 26.

In the two plays that followed, Westwood collected another six points. Jones followed up his pick with an 11-yard burst and Christian ran another 63 yards to the endzone to cap off a fantastic night for the Rockets’ offense.

Grundy County again found themselves in Westwood territory, but the Yellow Jackets again turned it over on downs and the Rockets knelt twice to bring it home.

“It was a good non-conference game, and that’s what we wanted out of it,” said Coach Mueller. “We wanted to get a lot of the mistakes and the substitution mistakes out of our system, and now we can focus on conference play next week.”

The Rockets will open Duck River Valley Conference play next week at home against Fayetteville, a team that Westwood beat in last year’s conference championship.

“They have great athletes and they’re a very confident team,” Mueller said of Fayetteville. “They’re always going to have great athletes and great football players, so it’s always a challenge going against them. We’ll need to answer with the swagger that they have… It may be a shootout, so I want to encourage everyone to come out and be entertained.”

Westwood’s home opener against the Tigers at Dyer-Bouldin Field will take place on Thursday, Aug. 7 at 6:30 p.m.

Box Score:

Westwood: 0 16 6 6 – 28

Grundy Co: 6 0 0 0 – 6

Offensive Yards:

Westwood: 240

Grundy Co: 135