From CJOnline
By Brent Maycock
SILVER LAKE — As soon as the final horn sounded on Rossville’s 24-14 win over Silver Lake in the War on 24 showdown in late October, fans from both teams couldn’t help but hold one thought.
“See ya again in a few weeks.”
Both teams are poised to earn that rematch, but first must get by big challenges in Friday’s Class 3A quarterfinals. No. 1 Rossville (11-0) hits the road to Pittsburg for a 5 p.m. clash with perennial contender Colgan (9-2), while Silver Lake (10-1) is home for the second straight week, entertaining Wellsville (9-2) at 7 p.m.
And while fans might be dreaming of a semifinal rematch — which would be the ninth in 13 years between the Mid-East League archrivals — the coaches and players from each school haven’t even entertained such thoughts.
“You have to take it one game at a time, survive and do the things we need to do to get prepared for our next opponent,” Silver Lake coach C.J. Hamilton said. “I don’t think coach (Derick) Hammes or any of their players are thinking anything but Colgan and we’re not thinking anything else but Wellsville.”
Hammes agreed.
“Colgan’s got our full attention, I can tell you that,” Hammes said. “They’re so well coached and play extremely hard and do everything right. For us to look ahead, we’d be in trouble. We’re not doing that. The circumstances of this game, playing in (Pittsburg State’s) Carnie-Smith Stadium against a football team with a lot of tradition, our kids are really looking forward to that.”
Both teams survived tough battles just to get to the quarterfinals.
After dominating a regular-season matchup with Centralia 42-6, Rossville had its hands full with the Panthers in the rematch. The game was tied 14-14 at halftime before an acrobatic touchdown catch by Thatcher Horak sparked the Bulldawgs to a 21-0 advantage in the second half and a 35-14 win.
Horak caught a pair of touchdown passes from younger brother Tucker, who finished with 106 yards rushing and 134 passing. The Bulldawgs made some huge defensive stands to secure the win, twice stopping Centralia inside the Rossville 15.
“Those guys were good and they came to play,” Hammes said of Centralia, which won the 2-1A state title last year. “They gave us a great challenge and the difference between this year’s team and last year’s is we didn’t have those challenges. We’ve had some injury situations or two to deal with and we’ve been in a couple tight ball games in the latter half of the season where we’ve pulled through. The make-up of the season has been different and the kids have responded.”
Colgan has won five straight since suffering consecutive losses to 4A Division II quarterfinalists Frontenac and Columbus. The Panthers downed Jayhawk-Linn (46-7) and Galena (35-18) to reach the quarterfinals.
Though Colgan has yet to reach a championship game in two seasons of 3A, the Panthers do own seven state titles overall, inlcuding four straight 2-1A crowns from 2000-03. Colgan has made the 3A quarterfinals each of the last two seasons, falling to Rossville 17-7 in 2012.
“In my career, every time you go to southeast Kansas, it’s the biggest thing in town,” Hammes said. “The atmosphere whoever you play down there is cool because everyone turns out from it locally. It’s an area of the state that really supports football and on top of that we’re playing a really good team.”
Like Rossville, Silver Lake found itself in a tight battle with Sabetha last Friday, using a 41-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Matzke to Jace Freeman on the final play of the first half to break a 7-7 tie. The Eagles held Sabetha scoreless the rest of the way to pull out a 28-7 victory.
“They were physical, had pretty good speed and tackled really well,” Hamilton said of the Bluejays. “I was impressed with them.”
Wellsville is nearly a carbon copy of Sabetha, relying heavily on a ground game led by speedy back Brett Osbern. The senior has rushed for 1,397 yards and 21 touchdowns this year and had logged five straight games of 130 yards or more before being held to 70 by Caney Valley.
Cole Silsby has added 923 yards and 12 touchdowns through the air, while the Eagle defense has allowed just 61 points all season with Saturday’s 11-10 win over Caney Valley snapping a streak of five straight shutouts.
“They’ve got good size and good speed and that’s always a tough combination,” Hamilton said.
Silver Lake has allowed just 64 points and had a string of four straight shutouts during the season. Offensively, Matzke has thrown for 1,860 yards and 22 touchdowns and also run for 635 yards and 12 scores.
