Take nothing way from Alex Reed, not even his 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown last Friday night in Great Bend High School’s 52-28 lost to St. Thomas Aquinas at Memorial Stadium.
A dazzling play in its own right, Reed’s return should have never counted, according to the National Federation of High School football rules book, where it states that a player cannot return a kick out of the end zone as it is a touchback.
Like first-game mistakes from teams, the officiating crew erred in allowing Reed’s return to stand.
“There’s no doubt,” Great Bend head coach Bo Black said. “(Reed) caught the ball about a yard deep in the end zone and faked a handoff to Jeremy Sigler about 2 yards deep. Obviously, there were some bad, bad play calls all over (the state last Friday).
“That one was just obvious. I saw him catch it in the end zone and as he took off, even at the 50-yard line, I kept waiting for them to blow the whistle and I kept looking back. Of course, we’re not going to complain about that.”
 Panthers idle
Great Bend has an unusual open date this Friday.
The Panthers have begun practicing for Garden City, which it plays on Friday, Sept., 17, in Garden City in the Western Athletic Conference opener for both,
Hard practices
Coming out of Labor Day weekend, the Panthers have devoted nearly an hour’s worth of time for meetings and two hours for drills this week.
“We’ve gone with basically meetings from 3:15 to 4 o’clock daily and practice from 4 to 6,” Black said. “We’ve been hitting all week. We’ve been going with an hour of things we need to improve on and an hour’s worth of Garden City stuff.
 “We want to take advantage of having extra time in getting prepared for them. After last Friday’s loss (to Aquinas), we just know what a big game that it is for us for our season and obviously, our conference opener.”
The Panthers worked on shoring up every single area from the Aquinas game.
“There wasn’t one single thing we have focused on (in practice this week),” Black said. “We just focused on tackling, and work through the week has been tough.
“We just feel like we came out and played really soft and not very tough. That was the thing that was probably the biggest disappointment, how soft we were. I think the kids took it a little personal.”