HOISINGTON —  Unbeaten Hoisington High School christened its football field with a 42-12 win the Ellinwood Eagles in Mid-Central Activities Association League play.
The Eagles only found the end zone twice, on their first drive of the game, and their final drive.
The Cardinals (3-0) amassed 206 rushing yards, 174 yards in the first half. Hoisington began the game by scoring in the first 1 1/2 minutes on a 46-yard bomb from quarterback Luke Becker to Brady Demel.
“I am really pleased overall,” Cardinals head coach Lonnie Irvin said. “I thought we just played a great game. We just tried to take away the things they do, and for the most part, we did. But they still brought some on us.
After the extra-point kick by Anthony Broeder, who was 6-for-6 on extra points on the night, the Cardinals were up 7-0 quickly.
“You try to simulate what they do in practice, but you really can’t,” Eagles head coach Monte Doll said, “because, honestly, they’ve pretty much perfected it.”
The Eagles responded by sustaining a 5-minute drive, capped by a 1-yard quarterback keeper by Kyle Corbett across the goal line and highlighted by two catches by Chantz Clawson for a total of 51 yards.
“One of our ideas this year is that if you’re going to beat them, you are either going to run right at them or throw it,” Doll said. “Coach (Bill) Maddy had some good ideas, and they were working.
“That was our philosophy going into it. It was working. We just made too many mistakes defensively.”
Ellinwood handed the ball to Clawson for the 2-point conversion, which was unsuccessful.
“We just talked to the kids about the mistakes they were making and how they had to correct them,” Irvin said. “We made a few changes and when we made the changes, things started shaping up and our defense became pretty good.”
The Cardinals ran the ball 10 straight times to drive from their own 26-yard line to the end zone, finishing by a 20-yard sprint by Dustin Broeder, his first of two touchdowns.
The Cardinals’ standout rusher, Taylor Stumma, only had six carries for 49 yards Friday night. Brady Demel ran for 107 yards on 11 carries and scored three touchdowns, two rushing (59, 6) and one receiving (46).
“That is what we wanted to do, establish the running game,” Irvin said. “(Stumma’s) a horse, he’s a very good runner now. And you mix Brady and Ben Stacey, two quick kids behind him, and add the big bruiser, Dustin Broeder at fullback, so that is a pretty good mix.”
Stumma did find other ways to contribute. Stumma aired out over two Eagles for the second of Becker’s two touchdowns on a 44-yard jump ball. Stumma also intercepted a Corbett pass to give the ball to the Cardinals 14 yards from the goal line, setting up Demel’s second rushing touchdown.
“Kudos to them,” Doll said. “They have mastered this offense and it is hard to beat.”
The Eagles also turned the ball over on a fumble, setting up Broeder’s second touchdown, a 2-yard crash into the end zone to put the Cardinals up 42-6.
Since the Cardinals were up by such a large margin at the half, the clock wasn’t stopped in the second half. As a result, the Eagles held the ball for 19 minutes three seconds of the 24 minutes in the second half.
The Eagles main deep threat, Clawson, came out of the game with an injury to his right foot. He sat on the bench for the remainder of the first half and didn’t come back out of the locker room with the team in the second half.
Doll said that Clawson was taken to a hospital to look into his injury, and that he hoped that Clawson would be able to rejoin the team in a day or two.
“His parents took him to the hospital here in Hoisington, to check him out,” Doll said. “It’s his foot. I’m hoping he just got stepped on with a cleat or something. Hopefully it will settle down over the next couple of days and he’ll be ready for Haven next week.”
With Clawson out, the Eagles became near one-dimensional. Ellinwood threw the ball three times, only completing one pass for eight yards to Patrick Ringering in the second half.
On the Eagles’ final drive of the game, they ran the ball 13 times for 73 yards and a 4-yard touchdown from Corbett. The drive began with 1:22 left in the third quarter and ended with 1:07 left in the game.
In spite of running the ball in the second half, the Eagles’ offense ended up with 120 passing yards from Corbett, who completed 10 of his 17 passes in the game.
The Cardinals got the ball back and ran two plays to wind down the clock.