SCOTT CITY – Scott City’s linebacking corps has four different types of players. Junior Cooper Griffith is 6-foot-2, 215 pounds and paces the team with 131 stops this season, his second straight year leading the team in tackles. He is a freight train of a player and is the Beavers’ top rusher with his bulldozing, downhill style.
Coach Glenn O’Neil calls senior Sloan Baker (6-foot-2, 190 pounds) probably the team’s most aggressive tackler. Baker delivered a huge fourth-down hit on Wichita Collegiate’s standout tailback Jaques Williams on Saturday.
Junior Wyatt Kropp stands 5-foot-8, 170 pounds. He is a wrestler who O’Neil calls a very fundamental tackler and someone who “can get the job done in space.” Finally, senior Marshal Hutchins is the smallest of the group at 5-foot-8, 155 pounds, but is a gritty, hard-nosed player.
The quartet delivered a terrific performance in a 26-6 Class 3A quarterfinal home victory against a high-octane Wichita Collegiate offense. They finished with 26 combined tackles, three tackles for loss and Hutchins forced and recovered a fumble.
Collegiate finished 10-2 with a regular season loss to 4A, Division II’s No. 1 Andale. Saturday, the Spartans only scored when the game was out of reach late in the fourth quarter. Collegiate coach Mike Gehrer labeled Scott City’s linebackers “outstanding.”
“There is no question these guys rank right there with Andale as far as overall team speed, overall strength of their defense,” Gehrer said.
Scott City, ranked No. 2 in Class 3A, moved to 12-0 and will travel to Halstead (10-2) for the sub-state championship game. The success and defensive excellence are hallmarks of the Beaver program. Scott City has won double-digit games in the last seven years and is 79-7 in that stretch.
Only Silver Lake can match that current run. Class 5A Bishop Carroll, with six straight double-digit winning seasons, is the only other current Kansas team that has more than five in a row.
“We just buy into the system,” senior quarterback/safety Trey O’Neil, son of head coach Glenn O’Neil, said. “(Defensive coordinator Jim) Turner has a great system for us. We buy into it, and we go 100 percent.”
In that span, Scott City has ranked fourth, first, first, second, second, tied-11th and this season third in Class 3A in points allowed, according to preppowerindex.com archives. During the past seven years, the Beavers have permitted just 9.26 points per game, slightly better than even Silver Lake (9.40).
Last year, Scott City forced 33 turnovers en route to a trip to the 3A sub-state game. This season, Scott City has 32, including 20 interceptions for 443 interception yards and three defensive scores. The Beavers are within range of the state record of 493 interception yards set by Chanute in 2005, according to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame. O’Neil, a Fort Hays basketball signee, has seven interceptions. Senior Brett Meyer has five.
“We definitely don’t want to give up big plays on our defense, and I think we have done a pretty good job of doing that all year,” Griffith said.
O’Neil learned Scott City’s 4-4 defense when he spent the first nine years of his career at Frankfort. He coached one season at Wellington before he spent 10 years as an assistant at Scott City. When he first came to Scott City, the Beavers ran a 4-3. However, the defense had trouble against inside trap and sweep. O’Neil said the 4-4 allows greater control over the trap and on the edges.
Now, O’Neil, also the longtime successful boys’ basketball coach, is 87-12 in his eighth year as head coach. This season, he became the Beavers’ all-time winningest football coach. O’Neil said belief and coachability are the foundations to the defense.
“They are very coachable kids,” O’Neil said. “They take the suggestions and the coaching to heart. They believe that if they do what we ask them to do, and then read their keys that they are going to be successful. Those are things that we talk about at the start of the year when they come into our program. Hey, if you are not coachable, this is not the place for you. Coach Turner does a great job with the defense.”
Collegiate had averaged 43.5 points per game entering Saturday. Williams had nine rushing touchdowns in the first two playoff games. In addition to having great athletes, Scott City followed the plan that came from practice.
“Read your keys and it will put you in alignment and it will put you in the position to make a play,” Griffith said. “That’s what we focused on. Just focus on your own responsibility and taking care of your own job and that will set yourself and your teammates up to make good plays.”
Coach O’Neil said Scott City wanted to “slow play” on defense and not give up big plays. The Beavers were supposed to take away the cutback first and then try to string the play out to the sideline. Scott City did an excellent job of tackling in space or using the sideline as an extra defender.
Plus, when plays break down in high school football, the offense, especially with an athletic quarterback, can make big plays. Trey O’Neil turned several broken plays into big gains, including one that set up Scott City’s first score. That didn’t happen for Collegiate.
Scott City, especially with their outside linebackers, stayed home and kept gains short.
“We try to be very sound and fundamental, and from there, make the other team beat you,” Coach O’Neil said.
Explosive offenses normally can break some plays, but Scott City limited big yards. Collegiate had 246 yards on 50 plays and had to punt six times. Seniors Chantz Yager and Abe Wiebe collected sacks. The Spartans finished with 51 penalty yards, 22 more than Scott City, and had several long drives that stalled because of offensive penalties.
Williams collected 21 carries for 122 yards, but much of that came on a 34-yard run in the final minutes. The game remained close after three quarters; Williams had 19 carries for 79 yards at that point.
“They decided that they were going to take him out of the game, and they were very effective at it,” Gehrer said. “Nobody had been able to do that yet, but they were able to do it, and that was their game plan. There was no way that we were going to get on the perimeter. That was a big part of our game all year.”
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