BY BUDDY TABLER
Special to the Tribune
LARNED — Beloit’s Cameron Cox keyed a 44-6 football victory over the Larned Indians Friday that advanced the Trojans to a rematch with Colby in the 3A state playoffs.
Larned’s score came on a 47-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dillan Smith to Brock Skelton in the fourth quarter.
Larned (4-5) lost its third consecutive game after suffering a number of key injuries. Beloit (6-3)
plays Colby (9-0) in the second round. The four 3A District 8 teams in the playoffs won all four of the games against teams from 3A District 7.
Cox scored two touchdowns and intercepted a pass in the first half as Beloit dominated play and raced to a 37-0 halftime lead.
“We just couldn’t get anything going offensively,” said Larned coach Tad Remy.”We played a decent first quarter, but turnovers and penalties really did us in. Give credit to Beloit. They are a really good football team. We didn’t match their effort.”
Larned drove to the Beloit 34-yard line, but turned it over on downs. Beloit’s Cox scored on a 3-yard run and Josh Neal’s kick made it 7-0.
Grant Arasmith rambled 6 yards for a 14-0 lead and the floodgates opened. Larned’s Brock Skelton was downed in the Larned end zone while trying to punt for a 16-0 deficit.
Cox scored on a 4 yard run. Hudson Gray completed a 35-yard touchdown pass to Brennan Walker for a 30-0 lead. With only 18 seconds left before halftime Gray again connected on a touchdown pass, from 30 yards out to Vincent Palen and the Trojans had a dominating 37-0 halftime lead.
Brennan Walker caught his second touchdown pass from Gray for a 44-0 lead.
Beloit was led in rushing by Cameron Cox with 114 yards. The Trojans had 174 yards rushing on 40 attempts. They completed 9 of 16 passes for 140 yards. Beloit intercepted 3 Larned passes and those 3 turnovers plus a number of key penalties stymied the Larned offensive attack.
Larned attempted only 12 rushes for the game which netted 0 yards due to a number of quarterback sacks by Beloit. Dillan Smith completed 9 of 22 passes for 141 yards.
