OSBORNE – The Osborne football field is located several blocks away from the school. After each game, the Bulldog fan base stands along the Osborne side and high-fives each player as they sprint down the line. Then, the players normally talk with friends and family for a few minutes before quickly boarding the bus for the ride back to the school and the postgame talk with the coaches in the locker room.
As the players walked to the bus, Osborne coach Cullen Riner slightly deviated from his customary practice. He held back senior quarterback Justin Burch, senior running back Cullen Grabast and junior running back Denton Schurr. He gathered the trio together on the Osborne sideline near midfield.
The skill players, buffeted by a great performance from the offensive line, delivered a massive statistical showing in an 84-44 district home win against Logan-Palco in a battle of undefeated teams. Osborne tallied 685 yards, including 552 on the ground. It marked the most yards Osborne has gained since moving to eight-man football in 2010.
“I was proud of their performance tonight,” Riner said. “They played hard and are some of the leaders on our team. We did some good things tonight, and really it started up front with our offensive line. They got after it, and that allowed some running lanes to open.”
Grabast rushed 23 times for 252 yards and six rushing touchdowns and caught four passes for 55 yards and another TD. Afterward, Riner compared Grabast with a former Osborne Shrine Bowler who helped the Bulldogs win the 2013 state championship, set the eight-man scoring record for points, and now plays at Fort Hays State.
“Does a lot of things like Kenton Ubelaker did in the opening field for us,” Riner said. “Just very instinctive.”
Schurr tallied 22 carries for 230 yards and scoring runs of 48 and 64 yards. He caught a 53-yard TD pass in the final six seconds of the first half.
“We have got a good offensive line,” Schurr said. “They are big boys. They like to get it done. Me and Cullen just read their blocks and get what we can get.”
Burch, whose improved play has helped the offense average 53.7 points per contest, finished 5 of 10 passing for 126 yards and two TDs. He had three rushes for 38 yards and two more scores.
Osborne, ranked No. 4 in Eight-Man, Division I, improved to 6-0, 2-0 in district play. Logan-Palco dropped to 5-1, 1-1.
“It was like a buzzsaw,” Logan-Palco coach Mike Jenner said. “That is by far the most physical team that we have played in two years, no doubt in my mind. They will go a long way I think in the playoffs.”
Osborne briefly trailed, 8-6, in the first quarter before leading 50-20 at halftime. On the first play of the third quarter, Grabast, sprung by a huge block, rushed 53 yards for a touchdown. Both players have 15 rushing scores this season. Grabast has 95 carries for 792 yards, Schurr 90 for 784.
“When we get to split the carries, it really helps with us saving energy and stuff like that, blocking for each other,” Schurr said. “Just going back and forth, so that really helps with getting through the game. We don’t carry the ball for 40 rushes every single game, so that’s nice. Keeps the legs fresh.”
The Bulldog defense held Logan-Palco junior David Thompson, the state’s leading rusher among eight-man players, to 22 carries for 59 yards and a touchdown. Thompson never had a run longer than five yards all game and lost two fumbles.
“We knew he was fast, we knew he was big,” Schurr said. “Just knew that we had to tackle well, just gang tackle a lot.”
Logan-Palco senior quarterback Josh Van Laeys hurt the Bulldogs with passing and misdirection.
“You kind of try to pick your poison,” Jenner said. “They are physical. They were too fast and too big for us up front, and we just couldn’t get David on the loose. Luckily, we did some things with Josh, kept us in the game.”
He completed 8 of 13 passes for 153 yards and two scores. As well, Van Laeys tallied 12 rushes for 147 yards and three touchdowns.
“They put the ball in his hands throwing the ball more so than they have all year long, and he took advantage of it,” Riner said. “He is a tremendous football player.”
The offensive line features juniors Roxton Brown and Spencer Heise, along with seniors Derek Naegele and Jarrett Earl.
“We just work in practice on getting off the ball,” Brown said.
The group had significantly more experience than Logan-Palco up front, especially with Brown at center. Logan-Palco used two freshmen at nose guard. Defensively, Naegele, who had kidney stone issues in the last week, finished with a team-high 13 tackles. Both he and Earl recovered a fumble.
“The offensive line doesn’t ever get any praise,” Riner said. “Everybody loves the fast guys in the backfield, but they work hard. We really work on getting off the football and being physical up front. This may sound bad, but I am not satisfied with where they are at. I think they have room for improvement, and we are going to continue to strive for that.”
Naegele, used at several roles on the defensive line, played nose guard after he was at defensive end in a two-point win versus Pike Valley two weeks ago. Grabast moved from the defensive back down to defensive end, a move that Logan-Palco wasn’t aware of until pregame warmups.
“Honestly, I thought our center did a decent job,” Jenner said. “(Naegele) is almost twice the size of our center, but for what he did, he did a pretty good job with him. You can only stop somebody like that so many times. Putting Grabast down, I never even had that in my mind.”
Grabast and Schurr each weigh around 160 and 165 pounds but continually broke tackles and gained extra yards.
“Those two bust their tails in the weight room,” Riner said. “They are very strong kids for their size, explosive, run behind their pads well, and they are fast enough where they create what would be solid tackles into arm tackles. They change angles on guys. You have them squared up, and all of a sudden, they are two steps by you, and you are diving for them.”
Grabast had great cutbacks along the sideline that caught Logan-Palco off balance and led to scores. With 53.3 seconds left in the first quarter, Grabast had a 19-yard scoring pass when he went down the left sideline and made a hard right cut that left the defender unable to make a play.
“It’s him doing his thing,” Riner said. “He is a very instinctive football player.”
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