When there was little promising to glean from a decisively one-sided stat sheet, North Callaway head football coach Kevin O'Neal locked in on the unity shown by his Thunderbirds.
"That was one of the concerns of mine this year, whether or not we were going to play for each other," O'Neal said after Class 4 Mexico blew past North Callaway - a Class 2 program - in a 39-6 throttling in Friday night's season opener. "I saw these young men do that tonight.
"They were picking each other up, they fought all the way to the end and I'm very proud of them for that."
Karsten Ekern rushed for a game-high 124 yards and scored four touchdowns, the bulk of that output coming in the first half as Mexico pulled away behind a 32-point outburst in the second quarter. The Bulldogs limited the Thunderbirds to a meager 41 yards of total offense and only four first downs, while also providing a defensive score by returning a fumble 17 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter.
"We're never satisfied with a loss, but that's a very good football team that we just played ...," O'Neal said. "They executed very well and we didn't execute like we need to - to win against a team like that.
"I think we're going to see on film that we did some little things right, and then if we can get all 11 (players) doing what they need to do, we're going to be just fine."
North Callaway avoided being shut out when junior running back J.T. Higgins scored from 1 yard out with 43 seconds left in the game. Higgins topped the Thunderbirds with 51 yards on 14 carries.
Junior quarterback Milo Henry showed some jitters in making his first varsity start for North Callaway. Henry completed only 3-of-12 passes for a sparse 6 yards and threw an interception in the second quarter that set up a 57-yard touchdown run by Mexico quarterback Spencer Thomas on the next play.
Henry also ended up with minus-15 yards rushing in 14 attempts.
"... Nerves, obviously, were there, but he's our guy," O'Neal said. "We're going to stay behind him. I've got all the confidence in the world and he's going to build off this, just like everybody else is going to build off this."
While the Thunderbirds were unable to get any traction on offense, the North Callaway defense was slashed by the Bulldogs' running game. Mexico gained 300 yards on the ground, averaging 9.1 yards on 33 carries.
Eckern was particularly hard to contain, whether it was up close or out in the open. He paired a couple of 1-yard touchdown runs with scoring dashes of 55 and 30 yards.
"We played with a lot of emotion and that's what I need out of the defense this year," O'Neal said. "Coach (Ross) Rosenbaum has done a good job with them.
"They wore us down a little bit. We didn't get our fits (in alignments) exactly right a couple of times and they made some adjustments, and were able to gash us a couple of times."
North Callaway remains at home this week when it squares off against Tipton. The Cardinals were blanked by Lexington 35-0 on Friday night.
"We've got to improve what we do, we've got to get better at what we do, and each week be a better football team on Friday night," O'Neal said.