MALDEN -- It seemed only fitting when Malden played its first ever game against one of its all-time great coaches Friday night that the Green Wave welcomed him with the same formula he used to take the program to new heights.
Seniors Tray Stevenson, Mason Brown and Broddric Annesser marked the occasion with a combined 363 yards rushing and eight touchdowns as Malden blew past Kennett and former coach Joel Wyatt 58-12 to win its eighth straight Delta Bowl.
"We hope it stays that way," Malden coach Kevin Collier said. "We had a great week of practice spreading the ball around and that translated into tonight. That ground attack has been a force that has carried us for many years here at Malden and Coach Wyatt has a lot to do with that."
Wyatt spent nine seasons on the sideline at The Swamp, winning 69 games, three straight district and conference titles along with an appearance in the MSHSAA Class 2 state championship game.
Wearing headphones on the opposing sideline of his former home field for the first time, Wyatt and his Indians were outmatched in the second half.
Malden (7-1) finished with 442 total yards of offense, scored 28 points off turnovers and held Kennett (5-3) to 146 yards and eight points in the final two quarters of an emotional game.
"It's a tough pill to swallow when you get your butt kicked like that to guys you love." Wyatt said. "It's a weird feeling standing over there on the other sideline, it was weird pulling in here on the bus and it was weird getting in that visitor's locker room. Then you see the kids that you coached for so many years and it all kind of hits you."
The feeling was mutual for Collier, who shared a hug with his friend and former boss at midfield prior to kickoff.
"I'm not going to lie, that's very difficult," Collier said. "Coach Wyatt and I were together for seven years and those were some of the best times I've ever had as a coach. It's really difficult and obviously you want to win, but it's still hard to play and coach against a dear friend."
The Green Wave found their path on the ground much smoother than in Week 7, when they were held to 55 yards by Charleston in the opening quarter. Against Kennett, the Green Wave had 156 yards on 13 carries, and saw 26 first-half rushing attempts net 225 yards.
"We knew that was the case and they're kind of a three-headed monster when you throw in Annesser," Wyatt said. "Everything they did tonight was no surprise, they just came out and kicked our butt."
Malden needed six plays to drive 77 yards on its opening drive capped by Brown's 54-yard run for an 8-0 lead.
After forcing a Kennett turnover on downs, Brown teamed up with Stevenson for a 57-yard touchdown pass, hitting his dual-threat receiver in stride on a slant over the middle and a 16-0 advantage.
Both teams ended their next drives with punts before Tye Miller intercepted Kennett quarterback Patrick Maddox just before the end of the first. Brown finished off a 25-yard drive with a 2-yard run to open up a 24-0 lead early in the second quarter.
Kennett answered with a 30-yard screen pass from Maddox to Ty Ellis to cut the lead to 24-8 three minutes later.
Turnovers from both teams -- a Malden fumble followed by a Maddox interception -- led to Brown's second passing touchdown as he hit a diving Annesser over the middle for a 7-yard score just two plays after Onterio Reed's interception set them up on the Indians' 22-yard line.
The Indians took over with 3:04 left in the half and drove 65 yards in 12 plays to cut the deficit to 30-16. Maddox took a quarterback keeper to the left, used a big block and hugged the sideline before diving over the pylon for a 6-yard score as the halftime buzzer sounded.
Maddox finished with 187 yards through the air on 14 of 16 passing. He hit Ellis seven times for 120 yards but was missing his favorite target for the remainder of the game. Ellis suffered a head injury three plays before the break and did not return.
"He's so valuable on both sides of the ball and he just got a little banged up right before the end of the half," Wyatt said. "He's such an important part of what we do, not that it was going to matter, but we might have kept it a little more respectable."
Malden's defense and special teams made sure that wasn't the case almost immediately as Reed caught a line drive, shanked punt off the foot of Maddox and returned it 36 yards to the Kennett 19 three minutes into the second half.
Stevenson dragged five Kennett defenders all the way into the end zone one play later to push the lead to 36-16.
"That was pretty huge," Collier said of the punt return. "Usually in my realm of luck a shanked punt ends up rolling about 80 yards. Instead it went right to us and he did what he was supposed to do."
Malden's defense came up with a stop on fourth-and-9 five minutes later before Annesser took his first and only carry of the second half 46 yards to the end zone. Gavin Barstow recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff to close out the third quarter and Dylan DeArman came up with another in the fourth, both of which led to touchdowns.
"Defense is a game of adjustments and we made some personnel changes in the second half," Collier said of his team's success after halftime. "They were getting us with some match-ups. We were able to move some kids around and talk about what we had done and not done wrong. Then the score kind of made them one-dimensional because they had to do things rather than just run the ball, which allowed us to set back and defend the pass."