South Central comes back to top Victoria in Sub-State
VICTORIA, Kan. (Catch it Kansas) - The South Central Timberwolves came from behind to defeat the Victoria Knights 42-20 to earn the school’s first State Championship birth held in Victoria.
Victoria came into the game with a lone loss. South Central had two losses.
The Knights won the coin toss and elected to receive.
On the very first play, Victoria fumbled the ball and South Central recovered.
The Timberwolves turned the ball over on downs after four plays.
Victoria went back to work. Chase Schumacher set up the first score with a 29-yard rush to get down to the South Central 16. Two plays later, Schumacher punched the ball in on a seven-yard run play. Landon Schmidtberger rushed to add two more points to the score. Victoria led 8-0.
South Central could not capitalize on their next possession and turned it over on a fumble. Victoria took over on the Timberwolves 39-yard line.
Two rushes of 15 and 13 yards set up a nine-yard touchdown reception from Landon Schmidtberger to Ethan VonLintel. Schmidtberger tried to find VonLintel again for the two-point conversion. His pass fell short.
Victoria’s lead grew to 14-0.
South Central looked for a spark after going down to the hosts by two scores. They found it in JT Prusa’s arm.
On second and five, Prusa found an open Gavin Uhl. Uhl pulled in the pass with one hand and continued to complete the 40-yard touchdown reception. The two-point conversion failed.
Jack Herd intercepted a pass from Landon Schmidtberger on Victoria’s fifth play of their next drive. They took over on the Knight’s 18-yard line.
JT Prusa got his second passing touchdown of the night with an 18-yard play to Isaiah Jellison. Prusa ran in the two-point conversion to tie the game at 14 all.
Victoria went three-and-out on their next possession. The momentum of the game had begun to shift.
On the first play of the next series, JT Prusa took off on a run. He traveled 50 yards to give the Timberwolves their first lead of the night.
Prusa would score the next touchdown on a short one-yard dive into the end zone. He also scored the two-point conversion making the score 28-14.
Victoria would score once more in the second quarter. Landon Schmidtberger sent a deep pass into the back corner of the end zone. Seth Schwien was there to tap his toes inbounds for the score.
Victoria went into the locker room at half trailing 28-20.
South Central got the ball to start the second half. They would hold possession of the ball for almost nine minutes in the third quarter.
JT Prusa scored another rushing touchdown in the third quarter. He ran in the ball from two yards out. He would throw a pass to Coda Lindsay for the two-point conversion.
Prusa would add the final score in the fourth quarter with a 15-yard run.
Victoria would try to get a drive to go and put more points on the board.
They came closest in the final minute of the game. A Landon Schimdtberger pass was intercepted on the goal to seal the 42-20 victory for South Central.
JT Prusa led all players with 114 rushing yards on 25 carries. He would score four touchdowns on the ground. Prusa threw 17 passes and completed six for two touchdowns and 108 yards.
For Victoria, Chase Schumacher had 11 carries for 89 yards and a touchdown. Landon Schimdtberger threw 26 passes with 13 being caught. He completed two passes on 138 yards of receiving. He also threw five interceptions.
Victoria sees their season end with a 10-2 record and their eighth Sub-State game in the 19 years Doug Oberle has coached them.
South Central will go to Newton for their first football state championship game. They will face Axtell. The Eagles are riding a 38-game winning streak with two State Championships.
Axtell and South Central faced off in third place in the Class 1A Division I basketball tournament earlier this year. South Central came out on the top in the game.
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