Greyhounds warm up, vanquish Blue Dragons
HUTCHINSON -- As much as some people may have wished it to be, Saturday night's Jayhawk Conference football game between Fort Scott Community College and Hutchinson at Gowans Stadium here was not "The Revenge Bowl."
No, the returning sophomores weren't especially happy when former FSCC head coach Rion Rhoades left to return to Hutch after just one season in charge of the Greyhounds. But there's a bigger picture here: Fort Scott just wanted to win and keep pace with No. 4-ranked Butler atop the Jayhawk Conference standings.
That's it. Nothing else.
And that mission was accomplished with Fort Scott's 34-14 victory over the Blue Dragons. Fort Scott is 4-0 in the conference and 5-0 overall, leading Butler by a half game. The Grizzlies are 3-0, 5-0 after winning a non-conference game at Air Force Prep -- which just happens to be Fort Scott's next opponent -- at Colorado Springs by a 37-7 score. Hutchinson fell to 1-3, 1-5.
The only problem for the No. 19-ranked Greyhounds was another slow start on the road. The defense did end one Hutchinson drive when defensive end Kwame Jordan intercepted a pass by backup quarterback Skylar Travis and returned it 42 yards.
But in the first quarter, the offense had two three-and-outs and had the drive that was set up by Jordan's interception end with a blocked field goal. A special teams mistake at the beginning of the second quarter saw a Hutch punt touch an unaware Greyhound and Blue Dragon Brady Croucher recover the ball at the Fort Scott 37-yard line.
Hutchinson scored off that error when starting quarterback Chris Todd hit Danny McElvoy on a fade in the end zone with exactly 11 minutes left in the first half.
Fort Scott High graduate Dakotah Gettler recovered a pooch kickoff for Hutchinson, giving the Dragons the ball at midfield. But this time, linebacker Jaquain Williams picked off Todd and returned the ball 64 yards to Hutchinson's six. Two plays later, tailback Rodney Lovett followed fullback Jon Dukes' lead block into the land of six to tie the score with 8:37 to go in the half.
"We have to get better at traveling," Fort Scott head coach Jeff Sims said. "It's taking us a little too long to wake up, to kind of get our feel. We tried some different things this trip to get them going. For us to be successful, we have to play better on the road.
"I don't know if people realize this but last year, there were two road conference games and five home conference games. This year, there's five road conference games. So for us to win a conference championship, we have to play great on the road. We've had three games on the road and I don't know if we've played great in any of them. Hopefully, in our next two road games, we can play our best road games."
Hutchinson seemed to be trying something new to keep the Greyhound defense on its heels, switching out Todd, a transfer from pass-happy Texas Tech, and Travis, a freshman from Douglass, who did seem to provide a spark with some quarterback draws and roll outs.
"I think they put in the two quarterbacks and tried to go to the strengths of those quarterbacks," Sims said. "We hadn't seen Travis very much, so we didn't know what his strengths were but he's obviously a good runner and knows how to move around in the pocket. They threw a lot of different things at us in the first half and my coaches made some adjustments at halftime and we played really well in the second half."
Lovett, a sophomore from Pompano Beach, Fla., had his breakout rushing game last week, burning Dodge City for 284 yards. This week, he finally got to visit the end zone. The workhorse, who gets an average of 33 carries a game, made his second trip there after carrying the ball on every play of a six-play, 46-yard drive set up by a short punt into a gusty south wins. The last play was a two-yard plunge over the middle of the line with 4:07 left in the half. The PAT kick was no good, but Fort Scott led 13-7.
The Greyhounds had their lead even though they had just 71 yards of total offense, 62 of which was on the ground. Hutchinson had 105 total yards.
Gettler got involved in another special teams play when he was able to down a punt at Fort Scott's one-yard line. The first two plays of the ensuing drive were one-yard runs.
The 'Hounds brought out the four-receiver set on third down. Quarterback Greg Cross showed off his arm by hitting an extremely wide-open Kris Knaup at midfield from seven yards deep in the end zone. Knaup, a Pittsburg freshman, then took his first career catch all the way to the end zone for his first career touchdown, completing what is likely the second-longest offensive play in Fort Scott history. Jared Oshel's PAT kick made it 20-7 with 8:10 left in the third.
The Greyhounds scored twice more in the period. Cross hit Anthony Riley in the left corner of the end zone from 13 yards out with 2:50 to go. Lovett carried it over from three yards out with 53 seconds left to cap a 34-yard drive set up by an eight-yard punt.
The 'Hounds had 200 yards of offense in the third period and boosted their lead to 34-7. Passing accounted for 182 of those yards.
Cross has been adequately protected most of the season. But Lovett's performances these past two weeks -- he finished with 113 yards on a low-for-him 21 rushes -- shows how the offensive line is continuing to improve.
"They've come a long way but we still have a long way to go," Sims said. "We have to improve every week. That's what is so hard. As you get successful, it's hard to fight against complacency in the field.
"We have a good football team. But we want to go down as a great football team. So we need to continue working and as the season goes on, that gets hard because you get dinged up and things like that. But all in all, we made it through without injuries and the kids responded."
Fort Scott's reserves played most of the fourth quarter. Hutchinson got its other touchdown with 5:21 to go when Damien Bates plunged in from one yard out to cap a 15-play, 80-yard drive that ate up five minutes and 39 seconds.
The 'Hounds finished with 325 total yards. Cross completed six of his last 10 passes end finished seven of 15 for 198 yards. Riley caught three passes for 52 yards.
Hutchinson ended up with 212 total yards. The Dragons had only 61 yards rushing on 46 carries. Travis was the leading ball carrier with 45 yards on 11 carries even though he didn't play extensively after the first quarter. Bates, the starting tailback, had only 24 yards on 21 carries.
Todd finished 14 of 27 for 141 yards but was sacked four times for 30 yards in losses. Jordan got to him twice.
McElvoy caught eight passes for 77 yards.
Air Force Prep comes to Fort Scott for the first time ever Saturday for a 1 p.m. kickoff at Frary Field. AFP is playing all the Jayhawk Conference teams for the second consecutive season under an agreement that helps ease scheduling problems for both Prep and the conference. The Huskies are 3-2 against conference teams and 3-3 overall.
"We love playing at home," Sims says. "That's one thing I really like because I can almost guarantee that my team's going to be excited at home. It's fun to play in front of your fans. The guys like playing at 1 o'clock versus 7 o'clock because they get to have a good game, then enjoy their family afterward and it's a fun time in Fort Scott.
Air Force Prep is a good football team. They play hard. They're very well-coached and we'll have another tough game next week."
'HOUND BOX
FORT SCOTT.... 0 13 21 0 -- 34
HUTCHINSON...… 0 7 0 7 -- 14
Team Stats | Fort Scott | Hutch |
First downs | 13 | 16 |
Rushes-yards | 36-127 | 46-61 |
Passing yards | 198 | 151 |
Total offense | 325 | 212 |
Passing (c-a-I) | 7-15-0 | 15-30-3 |
Sacked-yards lost | 0-0 | 4-30 |
Punt returns-yards | 0-0 | 0-0 |
Kickoff returns-yards | 2-25 | 5-69 |
Int. returns-yards | 3-106 | 0-0 |
Punts-average | 5-24.8 | 7-36.1 |
Fumbles-lost | 1-0 | 2-0 |
Penalties-yards | 5-25 | 4-25 |
Scoring
Second quarter
H -- McEvoy 19 pass from Todd (hipshar kick), 11:00 [7, 37, 3:10]
FS -- Lovett 6 run (Oshel kick), 8:37 [2, 6, 0:11]
FS -- Lovett 2 run (Oshel kick), 2:45 [6, 46, 4:07]
Third quarter
FS -- Knaup 97 pass from Cross (Oshel kick), 8:10 [3, 99, 1:15]
FS -- Riley 13 pass from Cross (Oshel kick), 2:50 [6, 67, 1:48]
FS -- Lovett 3 run (Oshel kick), 0:53 [3, 34, 0:15]
Fourth quarter
H -- Bates 1 run (Hipshar kick), 5:21 [15, 80, 5:39]
Individual statistics
RUSHING: Fort Scott -- Lovett 21-113, Jameson 9-11, Cross 4-5, Lewis 1-minus 1, Dukes 2-minus 1. Hutchinson -- Travis 11-45, Bates 21-24, Gamble 3-11, McElvoy 1-5, Todd 10-minus 24.
PASSING: Fort Scott -- Cross 7-15-0-198. Hutchinson -- Todd 14-27-2-141, Travis 1-3-1-10.
RECEIVING: Fort Scott -- Riley 3-52, Knaup 1-97, Adams 1-31, Jameson 1-9, Sexton 1-9. Hutchinson -- McElvoy 8-77, Goffigan 3-28, Johnson 2-22, Bates 1-16, King 18.
MISSED FIELD GOALS: Fort Scott -- Oshel 21 (Blocked).