In a marquee Class 5A season-opening football clash tonight, Saint Thomas Aquinas High School comes calling to newly-remodeled Memorial Stadium to collide with the Great Bend Panthers. Kickoff is set for 7.
Aquinas, finishing 10-2, was denied a berth in the state championship game last season, falling to Gardner-Edgerton in a state semifinal playoff game. Since 2004, Great Bend has made two 5A state semifinal playoff appearances and secured one state title game berth (in 2006, losing to Blue Valley).
Late Thursday afternoon, it was learned that Aquinas’ leading rusher. Dagan Reed, who rushed for nearly 1,000 yards last season and is an NCAA Division-I prospect, has been suspended for one week for breaking team rules, meaning he will not play tonight against the Panthers.
“(Aquinas) was a 68-percent  passing team last season,” Great Bend head coach Bo Black said. “We watched them play Blue Valley on film from last year and they didn’t have (Reed) or the starting quarterback (Richard Davila) playing and still won the game.
“From a standpoint of preparing for them, I don’t see them doing anything different. You’d think it would be hard to replace a kid like that, but at the same time ... it is what it is, I guess. We’re still playing a great football team.”
Great Bend is coming off a 4-5 season in 2009, where it lost its final three games, including a season-ending setback to state brute Hutchinson. The Salthawks went on to win their unprecedented sixth consecutive 5A state championship, beating Gardner-Edgerton in the title game.
The Panthers’ highlight victories came against 6A schools last season — state runner-up Wichita Heights on the road and Dodge City at home. Great Bend had won seven of the previous eight Western Athletic Conference championships before finishing 2-2 in conference in 2009, where Hays went undefeated in capturing the WAC crown.
Back to Great Bend.
“They’re the best 4-5 team I’ve seen on film,” Aquinas head coach Mike Thomas said. “They’re very disciplined. I told our kids not to expect anything easy in this situation because you’re talking about a team that year-in, year-out, the success in their program has been great.
“Bo Black does a great job with their program.”
As for Aquinas’ high-octane spread offense, the Eastern Kansas League foe is led by the suspended Reed (6 feet, 200 pounds) and senior QB Davila (6-0, 195). Davila threw for nearly 2,000 yards (1,978), and Reed, who will be back for Game 2, rushed for 988 yards and scored a team-high 10 touchdowns last season.
“We really feel like we’re ready and it looks like we’re going to have a pretty good football team,” Black said. “To play the best team we’re going to play all year (in the regular season) in Game 1 gives us a great chance to see where we’re at and all about.
“They’re the best spread team that we’ll play all year in St. Thomas Aquinas and of course, Wichita Heights is up there, too. We have an opportunity to test ourselves against one of the best football teams in the state this year. I think it’s going to be a great opportunity to see a great football game.”
Aquinas’ second-leading rusher from last season, Andrew Gittemeier, likely will fill Reed’s void tonight. He rushed for 305 yards in 43 carries.
“He’s just like Dagan,” Thomas said of Gittemeier on Wednesday, prior to Reed’s suspension being learned on Thursday.
On offense, Great Bend counters with quarterback Greg Hildebrand, along with fullback Dakota Ellis and tailback Jeremy Sigler in the backfield.
“We traded our last two films from last year (with Great Bend) and I didn’t have a roster at the time, but I do remember the comment I made is that their quarterback pretty darn good,” Thomas said of Hildebrand, who passed for 1,501 yards. “Defensively, we have to make sure that our kids understand that they are not a one-dimensional team.
“I expect a really tough game. We’re coming off a pretty good season, but very honestly, we lost quite a few people and we’re trying to get back in the swing of things and get back to where we were last year, but we have our work cut out for us in Great Bend.”
Like Hildebrand, Davila brings a run-pass package.
“Richard is a threat, both running and passing, and that’s probably one of the biggest things he does for us. If there’s pressure when he’s in the pocket, he can roll out and it puts a defense on their heels because they don’t know whether to come up or go back.
“We give him the green light to do both. We tell him that scrambling is not a bad thing. If there’s pressure, we want him to get positive yardage and that’s one of the things he really did for us last year was take advantage of the situation.”
The Saints return three wide receivers in Jonathan Pyle (6-1, 177, junior), Shane Nachbar (5-10, 160, junior) and Clayton Henning (6-1, 145, sophomore).
Nachbar led the Saints in receiving last season, totaling 34 catches for 520 yards and eight touchdowns. Reed, meanwhile amassed 378 yards on 29 receptions, and Pyle had 248 yards and three TDs. Henning had 80 receiving yards and a touchdown as a freshman.