Rising Star: Conway Springs’ Brayden Kunz posting huge season, has Cardinals in semis

CONWAY SPRINGS, Kan. (Catch it Kansas) - The Conway Springs Cardinals are in a spot they haven’t seen since 2011: one win away from competing for a state championship.

“We’ve been in the sectionals for four years in a row, so we’re happy to get past that one,” said head coach Matt Biehler.

The Cardinals matchup on Friday though, is one they’ve become quite familiar with. The Inman Toutons have been the team to end the Cardinals playoff hopes the past two years.

“I played in a lot of the games where we’ve lost in this sectional round,” said Conway Springs senior Zane Zoglmann. “We lost some really close battles and it sucked. So, to be in this position, it feels pretty great. I’m just hoping that we can keep it going.”

A big part of Conway Springs’ success so far this season has been from the monster season junior running back Brayden Kunz has been putting together.

“When he gets the ball, they better have several people on him to try and bring him down because he’s a load to bring down,” Biehler said.

Kunz has been posting mind boggling numbers week by week - ala 319 rushing yards, four touchdowns and nine tackles on defense. He is one of the leading rushers in all of Kansas to this point, averaging 214 yards per game and running in 26 touchdowns.

He said that even though the stat sheets keep filling up, he isn’t much to care about that.

“Oh, you know, the big boys open up the hole and I just run through it,” he said. “I don’t really... I just play football.”

And the linemen up front don’t have any issue with blocking for a guy who is averaging 8 yards per carry.

“We open up the holes for him but he does the rest,” Zoglmann said. “Running all the way down [the field] and being able to break free from a lot of tacklers. It’s hard to bring him down. You can’t just take him down with one person. It takes multiple people.”

With such big numbers, Kunz has been the topic of a lot of hype around the state, but he said there is only one thing he thinks of when he steps on to the gridiron.

“I try not to think too much of it. Just play football. Stay humble. Keep working hard at what we got. Goal right now is a state ring. One week at a time.”

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