The Ellinwood High School football team overwhelmed Larned Friday night, beating the Indians 42-19.
Ellinwood improves to 1-1 record both overall and in the Mid-Central League. Larned drops to 0-2, 0-1 in league play
The game began as a defensive battle. Larned’s first drive resulted in a 2-yard gain, a penalty and back-to-back sacks by Jake Christiansen.
“We deferred and they took the ball and we had to set the tone right there and our defense really did a great job,” Ellinwood head coach Monte Doll said. “Jake Christiansen, in the first four plays had, I think, two sacks.
“Any time you can have an interior lineman do that, you know you’re going to have a pretty decent night defensively.”
The Eagles got the ball on their own 49-yard line and drove the ball to the Larned 4. A penalty and a tackle for a loss pushed the Eagles back.
On third down and 13 yards to go, the Eagles let the ball fly, and Larned’s Jamil Shoemaker intercepted the pass to prevent the Eagles from scoring.
The interception gave the Indians the ball on their own 2-yard line. After two rushes for positive yards and another sack, the Indians were forced to punt the ball away and the Eagles began their next drive 15 yards from the end zone.
“They came after us,” Indians head coach Al Troyer said. “We didn’t make some blocks up front on the back side and they caught us from behind.
“We were just trying to run our triple option at that time and we had some miscues and they capitalized on them.”
It took Ellinwood three plays before Taner Osborn found the end zone on a 4-yard run. The Eagles made good on the two-point conversion to take the lead, 8-0.
On the next drive, Shoemaker, also a freshman quarterback, put the Indians on the scoreboard with a 41-yard run. The Indians kicked the extra point to make the score 8-7.
“I tried to tell the kids all week that there are responsibilities against the option,” Doll said. “You can’t pick and choose when you want to be a hero because you got to do your job.
“Somebody decided they wanted to be a hero, and they broke a big one.”
Osborn fielded the Indians’ kickoff and ran the ball to their 16-yard line. Eagles quarterback Kyle Corbett ran the ball for nine yards to open the drive. Osborn muscled his way to a first down, and then Chantz Clawson ran for a 4-yard touchdown on the first play of the second quarter.
That was the start of a 22-point second-quarter surge for Ellinwood. The second Eagles touchdown of the period came two plays after the Indians gave away the ball on a fumble. Clawson took the ball on a 39-yard ride to the end zone to put the Eagles up 22-7.
“We started clicking,” Doll said. “Coach (Bill) Maddy was looking at game film all week and noticed that they really liked to blitz up the middle.
“When you are blitzing on the inside, you don’t have enough on the outside and that allowed us the opportunity to get some big gains.”
The third touchdown was scored one drive later by Corbett, who ran eight yards for the score.
The Eagles took a commanding 30-7 lead into halftime, but at the start of the third quarter, the momentum began to shift to the Indians.
“Our kids didn’t play with a lot of heart in the first half,” Troyer said. “So I challenged them to play for your crowd and your community and they came out in the second half and did play hard.”
The Eagles got the ball first after halftime, but the Indians, aided by a holding penalty against Ellinwood, was able to force the Eagles to punt.
Clawson, the Eagles’ punter, missed the high snap and scrambled to within four yards of the line of scrimmage.
The Indians took advantage of the good field position. Larned’s first drive of the second half began much like its first drive of the game. The Eagles got a sack.
This time, Brady Keith, who came in as quarterback for an injured Shoemaker, who suffered a leg injury, went down for a 2-yard loss.
After the setback, the Indians were able to put together a solid drive, capped by a 1-yard scoring run by Keith.
The Indians’ extra point attempt was blocked,leaving the score at 30-13.
The Eagles went three-and-out on their next drive, and the Indians looked as though they might stage a comeback.
But Keith threw an interception to Corbett, ending the Indians’ drive.
Corbett then threw a 71-yard bomb to Clawson for an Eagles’ touchdown on the very next play to make it 36-13.
The Indians struggled to get their offense going after that. Larned’s next drive ended on downs and the drive after that ended in a punt.
In between the two Indians’ drives, the Eagles scored another touchdown. This one was a 31-yard pass from Corbett to Dalton Garrett, extending the lead to 42-13.
Keith carried the Indians on his back for their final drive of the game. He began the drive with a 61-yard sprint into Eagles’ territory. Then, after an 11-yard run, Keith took the ball into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown, only to have it called back on a holding penalty.
“Their quarterback that came in, holy smokes, he’s going to be a player before it’s all said and done,” Doll said of Keith.
On the next play, Keith scored from 10 yards out to close the scoring with only 30 seconds left.
“(Keith has) got some quick bursts,” Troyer said. “He’s a little spider and he’s got a lot of heart in him and we’ll look to utilize him in the future.”