MANNFORD — There are Pirates, there are Purple Pirates, and when Mannford and Bristow get together on the football field, somebody gets to take the Battle of the Boats trophy home.
Friday night, that somebody was Mannford, winning on their home field, reflecting a paradigm shift in the momentum of the rivalry, which up until last season, had been dominated by Bristow for 13 years. 2013 was the last time Mannford sunk Bristow and took the trophy home.
Last Friday, Mannford won their second in a row, outlasting the Bristow Pirates, 39-27.
Mannford ran for 328 yards, scored six rushing touchdowns and turned back Bristow in the Battle of the Boats, retaining possession of the traveling trophy and, more importantly, keeping their perfect season alive.
Mannford is 3-0. But this one wasn't another opening-night blowout or a 40-point demolition of a rival in a town up the lake. Bristow came to play.
The Bristow Pirates rolled up 431 yards of offense, ran for 244, threw for another 187 and twice forced Mannford to respond after halftime.
Mannford answered. Repeatedly. Junior Ryder Tidwell was the wrecking ball, carrying 21 times for 240 yards and two touchdowns. Senior JJ Hindsman, fresh off his 288-yard, five-touchdown performance against Cleveland a week earlier, was held to a considerably more pedestrian 90 yards.
So he just scored four touchdowns instead. That's a problem opposing teams are going to find with Mannford these days. Pick your poison. Sell out your defenders to stop Hindsman and Tidwell’s going to keelhaul you. Let Hindsman loose near the goal line and you’ll realize he has spent the first three weeks of the season treating the end zone like his own personal party zone.
Together, Tidwell and Hindsman accounted for 330 rushing yards before Mannford's other carries and losses were figured into the team's 328-yard net total. More importantly, the pair accounted for all six Mannford touchdowns.
There wasn't much mystery about it. Mannford threw the football twice. Both passes were completed by Kayden Leslie for 18 yards.
That was it. The Pirates weren't interested in making this complicated or fancy. They ran the football. Then they ran it again. And when Bristow’s defense obviously showed that they knew Mannford was going to run it, Mannford ran it anyway. For 328 yards.
Bristow made sure none of it came without stress.
The Bristow Pirates struck for seven in the opening quarter, but Mannford put up 12 and carried an 18-7 advantage into halftime.
Then Bristow came back cannons firing.
The Purple Pirates scored 13 in the third quarter and another seven in the fourth, producing more points against Mannford than Catoosa and Cleveland had managed in the first two games combined.
Mannford never blinked. Kenny Gooch’s Pirates answered with seven in the third and 14 more in the fourth, enough to finally put away a Bristow team that refused to surrender.
If Mannford needed a test before district play, it got one.
BristowrunningbackMack Powell was outstanding, rushing 20 times for 172 yards and two touchdowns — an 8.6-yard average — while senior D. McGee added 58 yards on 10 carries.
Sophomore quarterback Jai Robins gave Mannford another problem entirely.
Robins completed 18 of 24 passes for 187 yards and a touchdown, although Mannford also intercepted him once. Javon Freeman was his favorite target, catching six passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, while Braylon Freeman caught five for 45 and McGee added five receptions for 47 yards.
Bristow didn't stumble into 27 points because Mannford made mistakes. They earned them.
They ran 38 times for 244 yards and completed 75 percent of their passes. Powell broke a run of 40 yards, Freeman averaged better than 14 yards per catch and Bristow finished with enough offense to have won any game they played this season so far… Just not this one.
Every time Bristow threatened to turn the Battle of the Boats into a slaughter, Mannford's running game took control again.
Tidwell averaged better than 11 yards every time he touched the football. Think about that for a minute.
Hand him the ball on firstand- 10 and, on average, the chains moved. Hindsman supplied the touchdowns, finding the end zone four times and pushing his season total to 12 through only three games, and through three weeks, Hindsman has rushed for 494 yards. Tidwell has 426.
That's 920 yards between two backs before September’s fat lady is even gargling. And those numbers help explain why Mannford has opened the season by scoring 46 against Catoosa, 40 against Cleveland and 39 against Bristow.
That's 125 points in three games. The Pirates have yet to score fewer than 39. This isn't where the series was two years ago. Not even close. In 2024, Bristow embarrassed Mannford 49-6.
Forty-nine to six. There isn't any lipstick to put on a 43-point loss. Or a 13-year series slump.
But last season, Mannford turned the tables, edging Bristow 21-18. Friday, the gap widened.
They beat Bristow for the second straight season.
There is some history to overcome. Bristow has controlled this series for much of the modern era and had won 15 of the 19 meetings tracked since 2004 entering Friday night.
But history doesn't take the Black Pirate ship trophy home. The winner does.
And right now the trophy has been secured in Mannford’s trophy case.
The turnaround for Mannford extends beyond just the Bristow series.
Mannford finished 1-9 in 2024. Two years later, the Pirates are 3-0, and are heading into district play with an offense that has shown opponents exactly what it intends to do and dared them to stop it. So far, nobody has. Catoosa couldn’t. Cleveland couldn’t. Bristow couldn't.
Now the easy part of the schedule — if there was one — is over.
Mannford travels to Poteau Friday to begin district play, and whatever happened during a 3-0 non-district start gets considerably less important once games begin deciding playoff position.
The Pirates will make the trip into district play undefeated.
But District 4A-4 is loaded with unbeaten teams, Broken Bow, Mannford, Sallisaw and Stilwell all sitting at 3-0 entering district play. Broken Bow has been especially brutal, outscoring its first three opponents 14321, while Stilwell has allowed only 15 points all season. Mannford, meanwhile, has put up 125 points through three games and now gets thrown into a district where there won’t be any soft Fridays. Sallisaw is unbeaten too, and even the next tier — McLain, Poteau and Hilldale — has enough talent to make somebody pay for a bad night. In other words, the Pirates have proven they can beat other teams. Now they get to find out just how good they really are.
But this week, they are carrying the boat.
For another year, at least, it belongs in Mannford.