Back to Kpreps this fall, our contributors will hand out helmet stickers to a team or individual that delivered the most important performance of the week in their opinion. Check back each week to see the most recent helmet stickers, and follow @Kpreps on Twitter and Facebook to watch as the Kpreps helmet fills up with stickers as the season goes on.
Helmet sticker: Lincoln (Conor Nicholl – Kpreps)
Lincoln has had some unique statistical trends during the last several years – including a key one that was broken with a 28-8 victory against Herington in Week 5. Lincoln stands at 3-2, 1-1 in Eight-Man, Division I, District 4.
First, the Leopards have won 12 straight season openers, according to the Kansas Football History database. That’s better than St. Francis and Victoria, which are both 9-3 in season openers the last 12 years. In that span, St. Francis and Victoria have combined for four state title game appearances and are currently ranked first and third in Eight-Man, Division II.
However, 10 of those 12 victories for Lincoln have come versus Tescott, located 16 miles east of K-18. Tescott is 21-81 from ’09 to current. In ’16, Lincoln beat Tescott in the season opener and then dropped eight straight. The following year, the Leopards again went 1-8 with a victory versus Tescott.
In ’18, Lincoln, with new coach Dustin Patee, opened with wins against Tescott and Wilson and then lost seven in a row in a challenging district that included Victoria, Hill City and Clifton-Clyde. Last year, Lincoln had the exact same results en route to a 2-7 season.
This year, Lincoln again started 2-0 with victories versus Tescott and Fairfield before losses to Logan-Palco (currently 4-1) and Little River, ranked fifth in Division I. However, the Herington win gave Lincoln its first victory after Week 2 since a 70-14 season-closing win versus Lakeside-Downs in ’15.
Lincoln led 12-8 after the first quarter and 20-8 at halftime. The Leopards scored eight points in the fourth for the final margin. This year, senior Tyler Good moved from quarterback to running back and freshman Logan Meier has taken over as signal caller. Good delivered 25 carries for 166 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Freshman Caleb Dotterer caught a scoring pass. Five players delivered double-digit tackles, paced by 25 from Good and 14 apiece by Dotterer and Meier.
From ’18-current, Good has delivered 797 passing and 1,570 rushing yards, along with 276 tackles and three fumble recoveries. He has cleared 100 tackles each of the past two falls.
Against Herington, Lincoln played without senior Landon O’Hare, who leads the team with five receiving scores. The 6-foot-4 O’Hare paced the ‘19 squad in tackles for loss. He is part of the team that returned at least 94 percent of its rushing, passing and TFLs, along with 67 percent of receiving yards.
Helmet sticker: McClain Weekley, Santa Fe Trail (Matt Gilmore – Kpreps)
Santa Fe Trail senior McClain Weekley had an incredible stat line last Friday night. In the Chargers’ 55-42 shoot out victory over Bishop Ward, Weekley (5-10, 180) rushed 21 times for 338 yards and five touchdowns. That means Weekley averaged 16.1 yards per carry on the night.
The Chargers needed every bit of it.
The game was deadlocked at 28 entering the fourth quarter when Weekley rushed for a pair of touchdowns in less than a minute to put the Chargers up 42-28. The teams would trade touchdowns from there on out with Bishop Ward pulling to within 49-42 with 3:23 left on a James Jarrett III touchdown run.
Weekley would break a 55-yard touchdown run in the final minute to put the game on ice.
He’s been among the most productive players in Class 3A this season. But what’s more impressive about Weekley’s performance is the senior also registered a season-high 18 tackles from his linebacker position. Through five games, he is among the state’s leading tacklers this season with 82 total stops. For the season, Weekley has rushed for 945 yards and 11 touchdowns on 100 carries.
As good as he’s been on both sides of the ball, he’ll likely need to keep up that level of performance over the Chargers’ next few weeks. Santa Fe Trail is in a loaded District 3 that includes No. 2 Perry-Lecompton and No. 3 Topeka Hayden. The Chargers get both of those ranked squads on the road beginning with Hayden this week.
Helmet sticker: Southeast of Saline (Alex Hammeke -- Kpreps)
Any doubters who questioned whether Southeast of Saline deserved to be in the polls were silenced on Friday with a convincing 32-8 victory over Colby.
Colby entered the game unbeaten and is the only team on Southeast of Saline’s schedule to this point that has a winning record. The Trojans did not play Sacred Heart Salina or Republic County but have already wrapped up a share of their third consecutive North Central Activities Association title.
The defense came up big in the win over Colby, returning both a fumble recovery and an interception for touchdowns.
Southeast of Saline is now in the driver’s seat in District 6 with a showdown looming with Scott City in Gypsum in the season finale. The Trojans have Goodland and Smoky Valley before Week 8, while Scott City still has to play Colby and Smoky Valley.
Helmet sticker: West Franklin (Matt Gilmore – Kpreps)
West Franklin halted an eight-game losing streak with a 39-20 victory at Humboldt. The victory evened the Falcons’ district record at 1-1 and knocked Humboldt to 0-2 in District 2 play. The Cubs had won 20 consecutive regular-season games until last week’s loss to Eureka. Humboldt was reportedly missing a handful of starters against West Franklin for various reasons.
West Franklin built a 27-0 lead on the strength of three rushing touchdowns by sophomore quarterback Lance McCullough and a touchdown pass to Cameron Wise late in the half.
The Falcons then diminished any of hopes of a Cubs comeback as Caleb McKenzie returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown and a 33-0 lead.
After a pair of Humboldt touchdowns in the third quarter, Wise added a touchdown run from midfield to complete the scoring for the Falcons. Wise finished with 182 yards on the ground to push his season rushing total to 453 yards. McCullough added 89 yards rushing to go with his three touchdowns.
West Franklin will host unbeaten Eureka on Monday, October 12th, before a home game with Jayhawk-Linn that may decide the final playoff spot in District 2.
ACA Sportsmanship Award (Week 5): Coach Demetrius Cox & the Hillsboro Trojans
Kpreps is excited to bring back the A Class Athlete (ACA) weekly sportsmanship award for the 2020 season. We have teamed up with 'A Class Athlete' (ACA) to recognize those individuals or groups that demonstrate sportsmanship and high character during the heat of action. This award is open to students or student-athletes who goes above and beyond to demonstrate an act of kindness or sportsmanship.
We are pleased to present this week’s ACA Award to Demetrius Cox & the Hillsboro Trojans!
The Hillsboro nomination and incredible tribute was written by Jayson Hanschu!
I HUMBLY write this email on behalf of the Hillsboro Trojan Football Team…but not only the team…but also the Coach, the Community, and the Band of Brothers a Football Team becomes…let me attempt to share the story/stories of why I feel ‘our story’ is one to be shared…again, I am humbly telling this story, on my own, without consulting with anyone other than my wife….I have a son on this team now, and he was a classmate of Demarius Cox….I have had two other sons graduate Hillsboro that also played football.
For the 2019 High School Football season, Hillsboro hired a new head football Coach, Demetrius Cox. He had been the middle school football coach for a few years, and stepped up to fill the high school vacancy. Coach Cox came to Hillsboro from Florida, went to Tabor College and played football. He also works at the High School and helps teach students with special needs or in unique circumstances. Coach Cox was super excited and energized to lead the Trojans, who had advanced to the second round of the playoffs during the 2018 season…plus, the team had a great core of sophomores/juniors coming back, all of which he had coached in middle school in the past.
Tragedy struck the summer of 2019. Coach Cox’s son, Demarius (who was to be a sophomore that year at Hillsboro High), suddenly died while attending a church camp in Colorado. Obviously, this tragedy hit hard with Coach Cox, his wife Ciara, the rest of his family…but also with the football team and the entire community. Coach Cox had spent all summer in the weight room with his team, plans were being formulated, his son Demarius was going to be a sophomore of the football team…but now….what?...
If Coach Cox would have backed out of coaching, no one would have blamed him. Some even felt he should considering the circumstances. But he didn’t back out…and here’s why…a football team is not just a bunch of random guys who show up for practice and games….a football team is a family…a football team is a band of brothers….and in small towns a high school football team becomes the face of the community….and Coach Cox realized he needed them, just as much or possibly more than they needed him….
So Coach and his family, as well as the team and community mourned the loss of Demarius…but Coach is a man with deep Christian faith, and he leaned on that faith to give him strength to move on…he shared that with the community, and he stayed on as coach for the high school football team…
At the booster club spring football introductions in 2019, when he introduced each player by name, each player took their jersey off….we all wondered why, as that had never been done before….when all introductions were done, Coach Cox explained why the players took their jerseys off….he said because on Friday nights these young men come out here and perform and entertain us all….but, at the end of the night, and all day every day, these young men are SONS…and he encouraged each family to cherish their children….what a powerful moment….
That year the 2019 team again advanced to the second round of the playoffs. At the year-end team banquet, Coach Cox established an award in honor of his son…the award was to recognize a player who shined as a complete person (not just a football player), meaning character, grades, service, etc…again, a powerful moment….
What a year! But, now it is the 2020 high school football season. Coach Cox’s second year. What happens? On the Monday before the first game of the season, one of the senior player’s mom’s dies unexpectedly….the player is Jared, or Big J as he is known by…so on Friday morning before the first game, the team attends the funeral of Big J’s mother…again, the coaches, the team, and the community banded together to give Jared comfort and support…Jared played that first game of the year, and the Trojan were victorious….again, a powerful moment….
But, there is more, on Sat Sept 19th, the Hillsboro Community Foundation sponsored a ‘scholarship fund drive’ for the ‘Demarius Lives’ scholarship fund…the fund drive was a ‘2K Color Run/Walk’….around 300 participants showed up, and most of the football team did, as would be expected due to their unique and tight bond…the event raised over $5,000 itself for the scholarship fund….again, a powerful moment…
Coach Cox has said it publicly more than once….the loss of his son was devastating, but the support and strength he finds in the team, the community, and his Faith has brought him through and keeps him moving forward every day….he has said, when he sees his son’s classmates and teammates out on the football field, he sees his son in a way also…and that is comforting to him…as he has said, ‘I see my son through your sons’….what a powerful moment and a statement about what a ‘band of brothers’ we call a football team is….it is so much more than a group of players on field…it is such a tight bond….
So this community, this school, this team, this coach, and this ‘football family’ have been through so much since the summer of 2019 until now……from mourning the sudden tragic death of Demarius Cox, to mourning the sudden loss of a teammates mother, to just recently celebrating the ‘Demarius Lives/Run Your Race’ community scholarship fund drive….this Coach and his Team have not only practiced and played the game of football together, but more importantly, they have been there for each other to lean on for support and strength, and also to grow – as players, as people, as examples of servant leadership – we should all heed their example, and do the same ourselves in our lives and our communities.
Each week during the season, we will choose an individual or group as recipient of this award. Winners will receive the Sportsmanship Excellence Award Certificate, and the unique ACA helmet sticker as part of our Kpreps Helmet Stickers feature. At the end of the season, we will choose one overall winner, for the annual Kpreps-ACA Sportsmanship Award.
Please help us by emailing your nomination stories, pictures, or videos to matt@kpreps.com and ACA@kpreps.com. You can also send to Kpreps via social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc). Please include the name of the person(s) involved and a description of the act or event that you are nominating. Nominations for the award will be accepted through Tuesday of each week, with the winners announced thereafter. We will list the weekly winners here, at kpreps.com, and also on aclassathlete.com. The overall winner will be announced after the State Championship games.
ABOUT A Class Athlete:
A Class Athlete was started in 2016 to encourage young athletes in all sports, to play hard, play to win, but also to play with class and dignity. Originally targeting youth sports, ACA quickly expanded to include middle school and high school sports, and beyond (coaches, cheerleaders, fans – everyone!). In recent years, participation in youth sports has continued to decline, and the #1 reason according to the kids: 'It's not fun anymore.' ACA is determined to bring the fun and the kids back!
Participating in sports is very beneficial in many areas. It helps build confidence and self-esteem, teaches respect, teamwork, and leadership skills, and improves communication and cooperation – all qualities needed to be successful in life. It is said that participation in sports reveals a persons’ character. But ACA believes, when sportsmanship is emphasized, it is a very important aspect in building a young person's character and integrity.
For more information, please visit www.aclassathlete.com.
Helmet Stickers (2020 Season)
Week 1 – Cunningham, Goodland, Norton, Wichita Trinity
Week 2 – Bishop Ward, Burrton, Oakley, Wichita Collegiate
Week 3 – Blue Valley Northwest, Hutchinson, Lakeside-Downs, Syracuse
Week 4 – Inman, Minneapolis, Thomas More Prep
A Class Athlete Sportsmanship Award (2020 Season)
Week 1 – Drew Schmelzle, Sabetha High School
Week 2 – Herington High School
Week 3 – James Lynn, Wichita Heights
Week 4 – Preston Miller, Meade
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