EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. -- Another streak wasn't going to end on Tray Stevenson's watch.
After falling behind early, Stevenson and the potent Malden rushing attack ran all over East Prairie, turning a first-quarter, two-point deficit on its head for a 50-14 blowout win Friday night.
The Green Wave scored 30 unanswered points in the middle two quarters to go ahead for good while their stout defense set the tone with two key takeaways and held the Eagles to six points in the second half.
It was Malden's ninth consecutive win over its conference and district opponents.
Stevenson, a senior running back, scored four touchdowns and had 289 yards on 25 carries to lead the Green Wave. His career-high in yardage put him over the 1,000-yard mark for the second straight season and was part of a 494-yard performance from Malden's ground attack. Senior quarterback Mason Brown rushed for 133 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries while Broddric Annesser picked up 53 yards and a score on two carries.
"Tray Stevenson is a man," East Prairie coach Chad Jamerson said. "He's a good running back with a big strong line in front of him and all credit goes to Malden. They knew what worked and came out and made it work."
East Prairie (3-2, 1-1 East) stunned Malden (4-1, 2-0) almost immediately as Derez Tipler took the opening kickoff 49 yards to set the Eagles up in Green Wave territory.
Quarterback Carson Aycock then hit Luke Marcum on a 12-yard pass before Mason Bryas took a 10-yard toss down to the Malden 2-yard line.
But the Eagles threw away their opportunity to go up early as Aycock fumbled the snap, which was recovered by Malden linebacker Gavin Bristow with 9 minutes and 15 seconds left in the first quarter.
"A miscommunication on offense set us back from the very start," Jamerson said. "Our QB put the ball on the ground but that's on everybody. That's on the offense and the coaching staff but not one guy in particular."
The Green Wave found their offensive rhythm rather quickly as Brown threw for 18 yards and Stevenson accounted for another 22 on the ground, including a 3-yard dive to cap an 11-play, 97-yard drive with 5:37 to play in the first.
"We know he's a real horse and what's nice is we've got other guys that can do it too," Malden coach Kevin Collier said of Stevenson. "We're starting to spread the wealth a little bit, but tonight it was pretty clear that Tray was the guy."
After two unsuccessful drive from both teams, East Prairie opened the second quarter with a long, steady drive that ended with Aycock showing off his arm and hitting Marcum in stride for a 19-yard touchdown to put the Eagles up 8-6 10:36 before halftime. The junior finished with 101 yards on 6 of 13 passing and threw the Eagles' only two touchdowns of the night.
"We could've easily laid down after they scored off the fumble," Jamerson said. "Fortunately we were able to drive the length of the field, eat some clock and kind of play our style of ball."
East Prairie's lead and momentum lasted all of 55 seconds.
Three plays after the ensuing kickoff, Brown flashed his arm with a 54-yard touchdown pass to Annesser to give Malden a lead it never relinquished. Brown also threw for 101 yards, completing 5 of his 8 passes, while Annesser caught four for 92 yards.
Looking to regain the lead before halftime, East Prairie made another costly mistake on offense as Drew Ryan intercepted Aycock at the East Prairie 46 to give the Green Wave good field position with 5:45 left in the half.
Malden needed two plays before Annesser took his first handoff 49 yards and into the end zone for a 20-8 advantage.
"We look at take away ratio very heavily," Collier said. "We gave one away tonight, but once again our defense set the tone by getting two big ones."
Ryan came up big on the next possession as well, deflecting Aycock's pass on fourth-and-5 to give the Green Wave one more possession before halftime.
Stevenson took the brunt of the load once again, carrying four times for 104 yards on the 5-play drive capped by a 14-yard TD. The Green Wave forced the Eagles to punt for the third time in the game before taking a knee and a 28-8 lead into halftime.
"Anytime you turn it over right before the end of the half and they get one, two scores off it, that's a punch in the gut," Jamerson said. "You don't want the kids going into the locker room with that in their mind."
Stevenson carried the ball 11 more times in the second half and scored his final two touchdowns with runs of 33- and 38-yards on Malden's first two third-quarter possessions.
East Prairie managed to score on its first possession of the second half as Aycock and Jon Ross Slayden connected for a 28-yard touchdown, but by then the Eagles were already down three touchdowns.
Tipler accounted for 125 of East Prairie's 149 rushing yards but was limited to 55 yards in the second half.
Brown surpassed the 100-yard rushing mark with a 51-yard run to close out the third quarter, and scored two plays into the fourth on 1-yard quarterback keeper to set the final score.
Malden hosts Hayti next week in a small school powerhouse clash at The Swamp.