Capital-Journal Preview Of Big Game

brent.maycock@cjonline.com

HUTCHINSON — It’s simply hard to ignore the numbers.

Rossville is the highest-scoring 11-man football team in the state this year, racking up 723 points (55.6 per game) on its way to a 13-0 mark. Wichita Collegiate is the second-highest scoring 11-man football team in the state this year, amassing 711 points (54.7 per game) on its way to a 13-0 record.

So expect an offensive shootout when the last two undefeated teams in the state meet at 1 p.m. Saturday in Hutchinson for the Class 3A state title?

Well, maybe.

“You just never know and I don’t think you can predict things like that,” Rossville coach Derick Hammes said. “They do have the ability to score and put a lot of points on the board, just like we can. But if you look at them, they can play some defense, too. And I think we have a pretty good defense as well.”

While each team’s defense may be a bit overshadowed by the offensive prowess, both took center stage in last week’s semifinal victories.

Facing a Wellsville team that had found its offensive stride late in the season, scoring more than 50 points in five of its previous six games, Rossville put the clamps on the Eagles. The Bulldawgs held Wellsville to just 229 yards and pitched a shutout in a 49-0 win.

Yet Collegiate might have been even more impressive. Halstead entered its showdown with the Spartans undefeated and averaging 43 points behind the explosive 1-2 punch of Blake Beckett and Eli McKee. Yet Collegiate shut them down, holding the Dragons to 141 yards (just 46 rushing) in a 21-0 win.

“I think our defense has been getting better and better every week and that’s a key that every coach talks about,” Collegiate coach Mike Gehrer said. “We took a team last week averaging 320 yards per game and held them to (46) yards. Defense is definitely going to be big and we just have to continue to be assignment sound.”

The chances of an offensive shootout materializing are quite good, simply because of the skill players each team boasts.

Rossville quarterback Tucker Horak has enjoyed a season unlike any other in state history. In last week’s win over Wellsville, the Bulldawg senior became the first player in state history to rush and throw for 2,000 yards in the same season.

He enters the title game with 2,705 yards and 45 touchdowns rushing (15.4 yards per carry) and 2,043 yards and 30 touchdowns passing (79.2 completion percentage). With 4,748 yards of total offense this year, Horak has a shot at becoming just the 14th player in the nation to ever top 5,000 yards of total offense in a single season.

Horak’s career total offense of 12,273 yards ranks No. 8 all-time in the nation.

“Horak is very, very special,” Gehrer said. “But they’re a very dynamic team with a great, quick pass game and running the ball. They have a great offensive and defensive front that has been big for them. For us, we need to get them throwing the ball. He has been successful doing that, (but) that’s not what they do the best.”

Hammes almost echoes Gehrer’s sentiments when talking about trying to defend Collegiate’s explosive offense.

The Spartans have run for 2,908 yards as a team, led by Nathan Burgoyne’s 1,458 yards and 30 touchdowns. But when Norton slowed Burgoyne in the quarterfinals, quarterback Austin Waddell exploded for 121 yards and three scores on the ground.

For the season, Waddell has rushed for 507 yards and thrown for 1,491 yards and 18 touchdowns with Burgoyne (23 catches, 513 yards, 8 TDs) and Jack Larsen (38-551, 5 TDs) his prime targets.

“It’s always the same thing, it’s our ability to stop the run,” Hammes said. “It’s easier to defend the pass if you stop the run or at least slow it down. That’s where it always starts. If they’re able to pass on their terms, it makes an offense very difficult to stop.

“They look really good. I look at them and I don’t find a lot of weaknesses. They’ve got a big offensive line, talented skill players and their defensive front is really, really good. They’re about as talented as you can be in 3A and will be a heck of a team to play.”

The last time Collegiate played for a state title, it was an offensive shootout. The Spartans downed Marysville 37-30 for the 3A title in 2009, racking up 374 yards of offense and getting kickoff and punt return touchdowns from Brett LeMaster to offset a 393 yards from Marysville.

Though the Spartans haven’t returned to a title game since, Gehrer said the moment shouldn’t be too big for his team, which has advanced to the second round of the playoffs in five of the six years since and reached the quarterfinals last year before losing to Scott City — the team Rossville beat in the title game for its first state crown.

“This has been their goal and they’ve been focused on it,” Gehrer said. “The stage isn’t too big for us. When we got to Scott City last year, the stage might have been too big for us. But once you start playing these kind of people and are in one-and-done situations, they’re all big and both teams are used to playing in them.”

Rossville has won 27 straight games going into its second straight championship game. The road back hasn’t been easy, starting with the regular-season finale against War on 24 rival Silver Lake and continuing with tests from Nemaha Central, Colgan and Wellsville in the playoffs.

But Rossville has survived them all, emphatically taking over the Silver Lake and Nemaha games in the second half.

“Our playoff run, we’ve had about as difficult a road to get to this game as we could have,” Hammes said. “We’ve played some good football teams to get here and have been challenged. And I think we’ve played some good football against people that have won a lot of games. It’s prepared us.”