The Larned Indians have a new streak going. The football team moved the ball 548 yards to beat Ellinwood 42-20 and move to 2-0 on the year.
Larned
The Indian football team had a notorious streak intact opening the 2012 season. Losers of 23 straight games, Larned fixed that with a win against Ellsworth. Friday, the Indians kept their new streak going with a 42-20 win at Ellinwood.
Late in the third quarter, with the score still close at 29-20, a big gamble paid off for the Indians. Facing fourth-and-five from their own 40-yard line, first-year Coach AB Stokes decided to go for it. Senior running back Brady Keith broke through the line, going 60 yards for what would essentially be the game-winning score.
“Anytime you can convert on fourth down, and obviously go for a touchdown, that’s going to be big,” Stokes said. “It was a huge game changer. It put a little more pressure on them to come out and get a score.”
Larned managed just 48 yards of offense in the first quarter. Half of those came on the final play of the quarter. By night’s end, however, the Indians would have 548 yards, mostly split between Keith and quarterback Easton Palmer, who completed 15-of-22 passes for 230 yards. Keith took 19 carries for 176 yards and five touchdowns, including runs of 27 and 31 yards in the first half. Jamil Shoemaker led the receivers with five catches for 89 yards. Grant Unruh added 61 yards on four receptions.
Ellinwood
After a successful meet to open the year in Great Bend, the Eagle cross country teams again ran well at the Swather Special in Hesston last Thursday. The boys won the Class 3-2-1A competition with 15 points, beating out Sacred Heart by three places. The Lady Eagles finished second with nine points, four points behind Douglas.
With races broken down by school size and by class, junior Pedro Montoya dominated the 3-2-1A junior field in 16:16. His time was third overall out of competitors from all-classes and 46 schools. Teammate Kyle Oglesbee finished second in 17:37. Sophomore Morgan Feemster dominated his race in 17:19, winning by 75 seconds. Derek Ward and Kyle Blakeslee finished ninth and 13th, respectively, in the senior race.
Senior Jenna Snell led the Lady Eagles at second place in the senior race. She finished 20 seconds ahead of the third-place runner in 15:51, but nearly a minute behind Lincoln phenom Jenna Farris, who had the second best overall time in all-classes. The freshman duo of Abbie Reichuber and Laura Standlee rounded out team scoring with third and fourth place finishes, respectively. Reichuber ran in 17:13, 51 seconds from the silver and 68 seconds from the win Standlee finished eight seconds behind her. Junior Brooke Panning placed fourth in 17:22, 14 seconds from the silver, and sophomore Chelsea Kasper finished eighth in her race.
Hoisington
The Cardinal football opened the season with a loss against former Class 5A power Great Bend. In week two, Hoisington headed to LaCrosse to take on the perennial Class 2-1A powerhouse Leopards. LaCrosse outscored the Birds 26-6 in the middle quarters to pull away for a 34-12 win.
Hoisington scored both of its touchdowns in the first half, trailing 8-6 after one quarter, and 22-12 by halftime. The Cardinals were able to move the ball on the ground with 141 rushing yards in the game, but quarterback Hagen Hanzlick completed just 3-of-12 passes for 19 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions. After LaCrosse scored less than four minutes into the game, Hanzlick found Jeffrey Kaiser from four yards out. Hoisington took the lead in the second quarter on an 11-yard run from Demel. From there, it was all LaCrosse as the Leopards rolled up 366 yards of total offense.
TMP
In week one, the Monarch offense ran for 399 yards in a win against Ellinwood. Friday, Clay Center shut down the TMP offense, allowing just one first down and one score in a 28-7 contest in Hays.
TMP went down earlier, going three-and-out on its first two drives and giving up two touchdowns in the first five minutes of play. The lone Monarch first down came late in the second quarter when Shane Zimmerman connected with Anthony Walters for a 65-yard strike.
Clay Center used two quarterbacks in the win, but senior Caleb Carson was so much more, going 158 yards on 20 carries, throwing for 24 yards, catching three passes for 43 yards, returning three punts, and intercepting a pass on defense.
TMP mustered just 141 yards of total offense, including a meager 33 yards on the ground. Zimmerman struggled to a 5-of-21 night for 108 yards.
