Week 2 in area high school football features the Ellinwood High School Eagles and the Larned Indians.
Tonight at 7, will be the first time these two teams have met in six years. Both are 0-1 on the season.
The Indians look to bounce back from a 51-6 beating from La Crosse last Friday. To do that, the Indians need to tighten up their run defense, which allowed 242 yards and five touchdowns on the ground to the Leopards.
Although Ellinwood rushed more times than it passed (33 rushing attempts to 21 passing attempts) in a 27-6 season-opening loss to Hays’ Thomas More Prep-Marian, Larned head coach Al Troyer said the Indians’ defense would be ready to pass rush.
“They run a spread offense, so we’re looking to be more aggressive on the defensive line,” Troyer said. “We want to be faster coming off the edge of the line.”
For Larned, a big concern is keeping its starters healthy, Troyer said.
“Our biggest focus will be staying healthy,” he said. “We had two of our starters out with injuries in the first game.”
The Indians lost two players last Friday. The first was linebacker Kasey Grandy, a 6-foot, 210-pound tackle. Grandy broke his arm.
The second was Josh Wise. The starting running back and linebacker left last Friday’s game with a lower back injury. Troyer said he’ll be fine and will likely play tonight.
A big issue for both the Indians and the Eagles were turnovers. Larned lost five fumbles to La Crosse.
“We just had some issues with the snap,” Troyer said. “That comes with starting a freshman at quarterback.”
The Eagles’ offense threw four interceptions and lost two fumbles to Thomas More Prep-Marian.
“We just need to take care of the mistakes,” Eagles coach Monte Doll said. “Not to take anything away from TMP, they beat us, but we feel that if we could avoid those mistakes, we could have won.”
Doll said he plans to use the Eagles’ ground game.
“We are wanting to run the ball more,” Doll said. “I think we are a better team when we establish the run first.”
The Eagles were most effective on the ground against Thomas More Prep-Marian. Ellinwood ran the ball for 116 yards and a touchdown, scored by quarterback Kyle Corbett.
The Eagles only completed 42.9 percent of their passes for a total of 94 yards in Game 1.
Defensively, Doll said that he knows the challenge ahead of him.
“Larned runs that triple option,” Doll said. “It is Troyer’s bread and butter, and he knows how to run it well.
“It is tough to defend. We need to get the kids to have their option assignments down.”