CHERRY TWP — This loss hurt — literally.

Dropped passes and poor tackling doomed the Moniteau football team in a 19-14 loss to Brookville Friday night.

What might have hurt worse than another close Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference Big School defeat was the injuries that keep piling up for the Warriors.

Moniteau Area High School — MAHS — might as well be renamed M*A*S*H.

"When I go in to see the trainer on Monday, what used to take me five minutes takes a half-hour," said Moniteau coach Jeff Campbell.

Campbell found out before the game that starting linebacker Zach DiBiase is out for the season with a torn ligament in his knee. Also roaming the sidelines in street clothes were starting wideout Brayden McCorry and starting offensive and defensive lineman Nick Summerville.

During the game, Moniteau lost tight end-linebacker Zach Sloan to an ankle injury and quarterback Kyle Armagost closed out the loss limping around with two leg injuries.

Things are so bad that Campbell is taking extreme measures.

"We're opening it up. We're letting kids walk on next week," Campbell said. "Some kids who didn't come out, who maybe wanted to play but missed the cut, it's open tryouts. There's nothing we can do. We have 19 ninth-graders and I don't want to bring some of them up and cancel their season."

Despite the walking wounded, the Warriors (1-2, 0-2) had ample opportunity to win Friday.

Armagost, who passed for 127 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 123 yards, was sharp Friday night, but he was plagued by a dozen dropped passes. Eight of them came in the second half.

"Too many mistakes early and too many dropped passes," Campbell said. "Just too many mistakes."

On Moniteau's second possession, the Warriors drove to the Brookville 7. But Armagost made his only real mistake of the game, throwing an interception in the end zone that ended the drive.

On defense, Moniteau took poor angles to the ball carrier and had trouble wrapping up, which, in part, led to a 40-yard touchdown run by quarterback Steven Kennedy to give Brookville a 13-7 lead in the second quarter.

Moniteau also had difficulty slowing down Brookville fullback Ryan Kerr, who rushed for 189 yards on 34 bullish carries.

His 3-yard TD run capped a 12-play, 91-yard drive following the Armagost interception.

"Holy smokes," said Brookville coach Chris Dworek when told Kerr had 34 carries. "I can't remember the last team we had a guy with that many (carries).

"I told Ryan at the beginning of the year that he needs to be as strong as he could because he was going to be a workhorse," Dworek added.

Brookville scored what turned out to be the decisive touchdown on a four-play, 78-yard drive in the final minute of the first half that ended with a 25-yard TD pass from Kennedy to Brock Bietz with 16 seconds remaining before halftime.

"That was the game," Campbell said. "Otherwise it's 14-13."

Still, Moniteau was able to stop two long, time-consuming Brookville drives in the second half that resulted in zero points.

But the Warriors also couldn't score.

On a final frantic drive, Armagost was stuffed on two straight runs from inside the Raiders 35 with less than a minute remaining.

The final fourth-down run came up a yard short.

With no timeouts, Moniteau had limited play-calling ability in that situation, Campbell said.

"Credit to them. They stopped us," Campbell said. "At that point you have to try to get something. We had no timeouts left. That's tough. If we pick up the first down, who knows?"