Hoisington vs. Rossville (Saturday 1:00) - WATCH HERE
Whatever feelings Hoisington’s football team and community are feeling going into Saturday’s Class 2A state championship game — likely a mixture of excitement, relief and accomplishment — Rossville knows them all too well.
It wasn’t all that long ago, it was Rossville seeking the breakthrough that Hoisington enjoyed last Friday when it reached its first state championship game with a 26-0 win over Beloit in the state semifinals. A victory that ended years of semifinal frustration and heartbreak for the program.
Rossville went through the same thing in the early 2000s. From 2002-2013, the Bulldawgs made it to the state semifinals eight times. All eight times, the postseason run ended there — each time at the hands of Silver Lake.
Rossville finally broke through, beating Silver Lake 21-14 in the 2014 semifinals.
“It’s hard, incredibly hard,” said Rossville coach Derick Hammes, who only had to experience one of those semifinal defeats after taking over the program in 2013. “I get it. It’s not a sure thing. It’s not a foregone conclusion. It’s got to be earned and sometimes you have to have some breaks along the way.
“Our kids were hungry that year, no doubt. Sometimes you have to go through failure together to focus on the main goal.”
So when Hammes and his No. 1-ranked Bulldawgs (12-0) head to Salina’s District Stadium for Saturday’s 1 p.m. state championship game against No. 2 Hoisington (12-0), they’ll undoubtedly face a team as hungry, if not hungrier, than they are.
“I don’t know if I can put into words what that meant,” Hoisington coach Zach Baird said of the semifinal breakthrough. “We’ve been there before and to say goodbye to our seniors in that game for so many years, it’s just been hard. To see the joy, celebration, all the hard work they put into it, it was just an unbelievable feeling. We kept knocking on the door, knocking on the door and to finally break through is a special feeling for our program and all the groups that helped us get to this point.
“Now we’ve got nothing to lose but a ton to gain.”
Hoisington has been poised to reach the championship game for quite some time. After seeing an undefeated season end in the state quarterfinals in 2015, the Cardinals reached the state semifinals three times in the last four years.
In 2016, a dominating 12-0 team lost standout running back Hunter Hanzlick to an injury in the state quarterfinals and was upset by Hesston 35-19, denying the Cardinals a shot at Rossville in that year’s title game. In 2018, Hoisington was turned back by eventual state champion Phillipsburg.
Last year’s was the most gut-wrenching of the semifinal shortcomings. After manhandling Norton 38-7 in district play, the Cardinals couldn’t gain any traction in the rematch and fell 10-8.
“We’ve had some bad breaks,” Baird said. “Last year, we go to Norton and the field is soggy and that made things tough on us. ... It was one of those things where you did feel snake-bit.”
Saturday’s title game will pit teams that go about things in a much different way.
Hoisington is a classic run-first, run-often attack out of its flexbone offense, amassing 3,291 yards of its 4,069 yards of total offense on the ground. Rossville, meanwhile, also emphasizes the run and has 3,836 yards on the ground, but also passes frequently and has 1,423 yards through the air.
But in a sense, the teams are somewhat mirror images. Both spread their offense out among a variety of weapons.
Six Hoisington backs have at least 300 yards rushing and multiple touchdowns this season, led by Holt Hanzlick’s 1,044 yards and 14 touchdowns. Joshua Ball adds 632 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground, while Cole Steinert has 413 yards and 7 touchdowns and Hunter Morris has 389 yards and 8 TDs. Throw in quarterback Mason Haxton (778 yards, 10 TDs, 1 INT) to keep the defense honest and the Cardinal offense poses plenty of challenges for Rossville.
“Our styles are different and how we get it done is different,” Hammes said. “But the kind of kids we have are very similar. Neither one of us are very big and both have the kind of athletes in space who can make plays. They look like they’re pretty versatile and can spread it around so you can’t key on one guy.”
Rossville is very much that way, as well, even though junior quarterback Torrey Horak has had a huge season with 1,460 yards and 27 touchdowns rushing and 1,352 yards and 24 touchdowns passing.
The weapons around him are just as potent, however. Woodrow Rezac leads four other backs with at least 200 yards rushing with 873 yards and 12 touchdowns, while Corey Catron has 645 yards and 12 touchdowns and Tyree Sowers has 270 yards and four scores. Bo Reeves leads five receivers over 100 yards with 456 yards and 10 touchdowns, while Rezac has 300 yards and five scores and Catron 200 yards and three scores.
Rossville is averaging a whopping 54.3 points per game this season.
“It’s going to be really tough because they’ve got a bunch of good weapons,” Baird said. “It’s hard to remember numbers and names because usually you play a team and you’ve got three guys to memorize. But they’re loaded and they don’t have any weaknesses.”
In last week’s 31-19 semifinal win over Nemaha Central, Rossville failed to hit 40 points for the first time this season and 50 for the first time in 11 games. But the challenge the defending state champion Thunder put up — the Bulldawgs led just 19-13 at halftime — was just what Rossville needed as it goes after its fourth state title in the last seven years, winning three straight from 2014-16.
“Our kids responded,” Hammes said. “They kind of knew that was their question mark because they hadn’t been challenged. We hadn’t had a nail-biter and had to respond, but I had faith in them. We believe in them and trust them and they go out and get it done.”
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