LARNED — Displaying a crushing ground game, the Larned High School football team ran past Ellis on Friday night for a 39-7 victory.
The Indians improve to 4-0, while Ellis falls to 1-3.
After displaying a potent passing attack in their first three games, the Indians resorted to power football as they controlled the clock and the scoreboard against Ellis.
For the fourth straight game, the Indians scored on their opening drive, a 19-yard rumble by running back Jamil Shoemaker to go up 6-0 at 9:34 of the first quarter.
After two unproductive possessions, Ellis fielded a short punt by the Indians and Landon Younger returned it to Larned’s 18-yard line.
With 4:12 remaining in the first quarter, Younger busted out a 4-yard TD run and Ellis took a 7-6 lead with the extra point.
From that point on the Indians controlled the line of scrimmage and the ball game as they took a 20-7 lead behind a strong running game that had piled up 182 rushing yards by halftime.
With 50 seconds left in the third quarter, Shoemaker again scored, this one on a 2-yard run to make the score 27-7.
The Indians defense shut down Ellis in the second half.
With 5:53 left in the fourth quarter, Larned quarterback Easton Palmer scored on a 1-yard sneak to stretch the lead to 33-7.
Larned got good field position after Ellis had a snap sail over its punter’s head, giving the Indians the ball on the 4-yard line.
With 2:53 left on the clock, Larned’s  Skyler Hoch closed out the scoring with a 4-yard touchdown run to push the final margin to 39-7.
Larned held Ellis to 112 yards of total offense as its own offense was churning out 240 rushing yards on 45 attempts and 88 yards through the air as Palmer completed 7 of 16 attempts.
Shoemaker led the Indians in rushing with 110 yards on 17 carries and Palmer had 54 yards on 13 carries.
The Indians travel to Cimarron on Friday for a game starting at 7 p.m.