Last Friday, Hill City scored a first-half touchdown against Ness City for a 7-0 advantage.
“A lot of times you see teams that lose the morale when you get down a little bit,” Hill City coach Travis Desbien said. “And we are a very physical football team, and a lot of times we can wear off on teams and they will quit.”
Ness City, though, stayed strong. The Eagles have produced four straight seasons of at least .500 football. In the last two years, Ness City has permitted 20.2 and 16.7 points per contest, in the upper quarter of eight-man defense. The Eagles delivered a pair of shutouts in ’18, four last fall and a season-opening 46-0 road win versus Macksville.
Ness City never allowed Hill City to score again. However, the Eagles committed four turnovers against Hill City’s much-improved defense and scored just once. Hill City won, 7-6, in the first meeting between the schools in seven years.
Across the state, Class 2A No. 1 Rossville held off upset-minded Rock Creek, 58-57, in a wild Mid-East League matchup. Rossville stopped Rock Creek’s two-point conversion with 26 seconds left to seal the win.
Rock Creek delivered 694 yards of total offense, including a single-game school record 491 yards and nine TDs accounted for from quarterback Charlie Killingsworth. The Mustangs had missed their season opener against Silver Lake because of COVID-19. Rock Creek has played Rossville every year, sometimes even twice a fall, since the school opened in 1991.
The dichotomy of Hill City’s and Rossville’s victory are part of a key trend through the first two weeks of the 2020 Kansas high school football season. Compared to ’19, the year has offered more close games (three points or fewer margins). Notably, ’20 has yielded many more one-point games compared to last season.
Interestingly, the teams involved in close games in ’20 are virtually none of the same teams involved in close games through the first three weeks last season.
Last year, Week 1 yielded six games within three points or fewer, five 11-man and one eight-man. Just one contest, Riverside’s 14-13 win against Hiawatha was a one-pointer.
In 2019’s Week 2, 12 contests - eight 11-man and four eight-man - were three points or fewer. There were three one-point games: Clearwater 13-12 against Mulvane, Olathe South 20-19 versus Olathe Northwest and Silver Lake 14-13 against Rossville in the War on 24.
Additionally, Stockton beat Sylvan-Lucas, 14-12, the fewest points scored by an eight-man winning team in the first three weeks of ’19.
In Week 3, Kansas featured eight games within three points or less, all 11-man. Two were one-point victories: Hays High 13-12 against Liberal, and Lawrence’s 35-34 victory versus Gardner-Edgerton in one of the more famous games of ’19.
Overall, that was 26 total games within three points and six by one point.
Eight of those came with at least one team from the City League, Sunflower League, Eastern Kansas League or Kansas City Public Schools. Seven of those had conference matchups between those teams.
All four of those conferences, with a high majority of 5A/6A schools, largely didn’t play in Week 1. Many of those teams didn’t play in Week 2 because of COVID-19. Additionally, eight-man St. John missed the first two weeks, also from COVID. St. John was involved in a two-point loss in Week 1 last fall.
Many of the other games also came from conference matchups, such as Big 7’s Riverside/Hiawatha, UKC’s Basehor/Lansing, Mid-East’s Silver Lake/Rossville, AVCTL 1’s Newton/Campus, Frontier’s Spring Hill/Louisburg, Mid-Continent’s TMP/Ellis, Central Kansas’ Nickerson/Smoky Valley, SEK’s Independence/Fort Scott, WAC’s Hays High/Liberal, and Wheat State’s Peabody/Centre.
It’s been much different in 2020.
More than 35 teams in both Weeks 1 and Week 2 didn’t play.
Week 1 brought 13 games by three points or fewer – including six one-point games. Week 2 yielded eight within three points, four one-pointers.
Overall, the season, with many fewer games compared to the first three weeks of ’19, has already brought 21 contests within three points, along with 10 one-point games.
This does not include six-point wins in eight-man by Clifton-Clyde over Little River in OT, and Thunder Ridge over Clifton-Clyde in double OT.
Through the first three weeks of last season and two weeks this year, Hill City’s win is the only one-point victory by an eight-man school. It is also the fewest points scored by a winning eight-man team in that span. Hill City scored its fewest points in a win since a 6-0 victory in 11-man versus Atwood in 1997, according to the Kansas Football History database.
“Coach (Marc) Cowles had his team ready to fight, and physically, that’s something that I was really impressed with,” Desbien said. “And they are very well-coached by coach Cowles, they don’t make a lot of mistakes. Fortunately, we were able to force some turnovers.”
COVID-19 has yielded multiple new matchups that rarely occur and less game planning from coaches. That could be a key reason for the uptick in close games. Last week, Pratt and Girard scrambled to find a game. They had never played, met midway at Butler County, and the Greenbacks beat Girard, 20-19.
In high-profile Week 1 matchups, Holton beat Nemaha Central, 15-13, on a last-second field goal in a Big 7 game that has occurred every year since ‘14. Bishop Carroll beat Junction City, 28-27, in the first-ever matchup between the schools. Carroll stopped Junction City on a late two-point conversion.
Fort Scott beat Summit Christian (Mo.), 21-20, the first time the schools had ever played. Riverton lost, 36-34, to Dewey (Okla.), also the first matchup. Northern Heights beat Northeast-Arma, 22-20, in the initial matchup.
However, big conference rivalries that occur all the time also yielded close games. In the MCL, Norton beat Smith Center, 16-14. Plainville knocked off Phillipsburg, 14-13, and then lost to Oakley, 10-7, in MCL play.
Garden Plain beat Conway Springs, 14-13, a longtime Central Plains League rival.
Hutchinson and Garden City aren’t in the same conference but matched up for the third straight season. Hutchinson won 21-20.
In Week 1, Chanute beat Circle, 16-14, on a last-second kickoff return by Jackson Coombs. This marked the third straight season the teams have played in non-conference.
In Frontier play, Paola (No. 2 4A) held off a big comeback to beat Spring Hill, 41-38, and Ottawa defeated Baldwin, 33-32.
And in Week 1, Northwest Kansas League’s Quinter beat Atwood, 34-32. From ’12-19, Atwood had won 10 straight in the series, including two meetings in two of those years.
*Special thanks to databases at Kpreps, Kansas Football History and Prep Power Index for past scores.
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