Garden City delivered a 27-point comeback to defeat Wichita Northwest, 46-34, on Senior Night last Friday. During the first period Monday morning, a female Garden City student asked coach Brian Hill if the Buffs were going to beat rival Dodge City this week.
“I don’t even know that she knew that we won last Friday night, but all she knew is that we play Dodge City, and wanted to make sure we were going to win,” Hill said.
Friday marks the annual Hatchet Game when Dodge City (4-2) plays host to Garden City (6-0), two longtime Western Athletic Conference rivals. The first game between the teams was played 119 years ago with the Hatchet introduced in 1938. Dodge City leads the all-time series.
Dodge City coach Dave Foster, in his sixth year with the Red Demons, has been a head coach at Ness City, Haven, and in Oklahoma before coming to DCHS. Foster calls the Hatchet Game the best rivalry he has been a part of. The matchup was voted “the Greatest Rivalry in Kansas” by USA Today in 2012.
Four of the last six meetings have been decided by eight points or fewer, including program-changing wins in 2013 and ‘14 by Garden City (41-20 & 32-14) and last year from Dodge City (21-20). In 2015, the Red Demons won on a blocked extra point in the final minutes that kept Garden City from the playoffs.
Normally this game is in district play, but because of the first year of the new 5A/6A playoff structure, this contest will heavily factor in the seeding. Garden City, Dodge City, and Great Bend – which beat the Red Demons and plays the Buffs next week – are alive in the WAC race. No matter the circumstances, though, it’s a classic rivalry.
“This is one because of the proximity, where we are located,” Foster said. “It’s the talk of the town for the next year. I told the players, it’s amazing how many people come up to me that maybe live out of town and come back to Dodge and say, ‘Coach, did you get the Hatchet this year?’ That’s the one question that comes up. I know in this neck of the woods, it’s a big deal to these two communities.”
The hatchets are displayed prominently in the Red Demon school from last year’s victory.
“There’s two of them,” Foster said. “There is one right by our weight room entrance, and there is one over by the athletic department entrance. They will be there next week, too.”
Hill is 3-3 in his six Hatchet games. He vividly recalls each win. The first, in 2011, came in double overtime for an 18-15 Buffs’ victory, the only rivalry win of that senior class’ careers.
In 2013, Garden City had to win the contest by at least 21 points to earn a postseason berth. The Buffs won by exactly 21 points and advanced to the Class 6A semifinals, the program’s deepest playoff run since 2005.
In 2014, the Buffs had a struggling season and entered the last week 3-5. However, Garden City won at Dodge City, 32-14. Including that victory, the Buffs are 14-2 in their last 16 overall contests.
“One that’s going to probably stick with me more than any other right now is (2014),” Hill said. “We had had a pretty rough season. … Really for this senior class, for me, that was the game, beating them in Dodge City, that has really set the last two years in a row up.”
Last season, Garden City was 6-0 for the first time in 24 years before splitting its district contests with Hutchinson and Wichita Northwest. Then, the Buffs lost in the first one-point game in Hatchet history since a 7-6 Dodge City victory in 1923, according to Garden City football archives. Hill still remembers the loss “like it was yesterday.” However, he did not watch the film until this week.
“We played horribly for basically three quarters,” Hill said.
Quarterback Jesse Nunez, also the starter this season as a senior, scored with under a minute remaining. The Buffs believed they had a great opportunity to tie the game and carry the momentum into overtime with the home crowd. Yet, the Red Demons blocked the extra point and ran out the clock to end the Buffs’ season. Dodge City won the conference title.
“It was a shock,” Hill said. “It really has been what has motivated these seniors and hopefully they can carry that over, and they can remember that feeling, and it will motivate them to play really hard this Friday.”
Dodge City had the blocked kick scheme set up all year, but Foster said it marked the first time the Red Demons had executed the play. Noah Williams, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound end, blocked the kick with some help up front from 6-2, 225-pound guard Armando Sosa. On his Twitter feed, Sosa has his main picture with both hatchets across his chest.
“The average kid in the average situation maybe doesn’t do it exactly as you are coached, because you just got scored on,” Foster said. “But when you get scored on and that one point is the difference between winning the Hatchet and not – we had some extraordinarily athletes on our team, and we had a young man (Sosa) who did his job well.”
Dodge City entered the contest last season with its offense led by standout quarterback Caden Walters that averaged 295 passing yards per contest. Against Garden City, the Red Demons slowed the tempo and deliberately controlled the clock. Dodge City rushed for 158 yards and passed for 114. It’s a flip that carried over to this year. Dodge City still runs out of shotgun but has continued to use the wildcat formation following last season’s victory.
“Prelude to what this season has become,” Foster said.
Dodge City returned one starting defensive player, senior linebacker Zach Rodriguez, but he suffered a knee injury. Two offensive starters returned, senior tackles Justin Schowengerdt and Thomas Sanchez, though Schowengerdt was hurt for part of last season, including the Hatchet contest.
Dodge City is very patient and will often wait until the play clock is its final seconds before snapping the ball. The Red Demons have passed for 44 yards a game and rushed for 250. Its average margin of 31-19 is slightly better than last year’s average result of 43-32.
Dodge City has played the No. 12 SOS in Class 6A, while Garden City has faced the No. 23 in the 32-team classification, according to Prep Power Index. Garden City has an average margin of 40-19. Both teams have defeated Wichita South and Hays High by similar margins.
“The way we’ve played this year, we feel like against comparable opponents, we’ve done everything they have, so we are not walking into this game saying, ‘Hey, these guys are 6-0, we’re 4-2, we are an underdog,’” Foster said. “We don’t see it at all like that. … We feel very good about our matchup, so I think that game last year was a big part of that.”
Dodge City junior quarterback Dawson Williams has passed for 263 yards and rushed for 917, seven ahead of Garden City’s Nunez for the WAC rushing lead. Williams has rushed for 17 scores, while senior Tylor Garcia has 578 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
Sophomore defensive linemen Evan Darville and Marcos Fisher (conference-high eight TFLs), along with junior defensive lineman Ansony Quezada (six TFLs) have been solid along the defensive line. Senior Clay Carpenter has moved from outside to inside linebacker and leads the team with 43 tackles.
“There were so many question marks that nobody knew what to expect,” Foster said. “Our kids are really coachable. They approach everyday with the mindset that you ask kids to have that you don’t always get, and that makes this group fun and also allows for tremendous growth throughout the course of the season.”
Dodge City normally uses a three-man front on defense but has gone to a four-front look at times and often used its best offensive players, including Sanchez, Schowengerdt, and Garcia on defense. It marks the Red Demons’ best defense since permitting 16.7 points a contest in an 11-1 season in ’10, Foster’s best season.
“It’s called get your best players on the field,” Foster said. “We’ve used that several times over the last couple of weeks where somebody is pushing the ball down the field, and we put our 40 package in, and they have gotten a lot of stops for us.”
Garden City has dealt with multiple injuries, including three key seniors: captain Peyton Hill (shoulder), senior lineman Benny Hernandez (high ankle sprain) and senior linebacker Cristhian Coreas (sprained foot). Hill, the starting fullback, and Hernandez have returned, while Coreas should back this week.
Freshman Refugio Chairez has stepped in at right guard, while his cousin, Mario Chairez is the starting left guard. Senior linebacker Zeke Herrera (60 tackles) and junior DeMarcus Elliott (eight TFLs) led the defense.
“Many of those guys have recovered from their injuries and are making their way back,” coach Hill said. “Hopefully, we can continue to get more and more of some of the guys back, and hopefully maybe be able to be healthier than we were at the end of last year.”
Hill rushed 21 times for 220 yards, while Nunez had 172 rushing, 71 passing and six scores accounted for in the Northwest comeback.
Coach Hill and his coaching staff kept telling his team to “keep playing.” Last year, Hill believed his team stopped doing that at times in its 38-21 loss to Northwest.
Hill knew his Buffs could move the ball on the Grizzlies, a team that has permitted 44 points a contest, second-worst in 6A. Garden City quickly closed to 27-14 at halftime and then scored 13 straight in the third quarter to tie. It marked the biggest comeback Hill had experienced in his coaching career.
“The mindset was, we put in all this work all summer long,” Hill said. “Them and Dodge City were two teams who ruined our season a year ago, and these seniors really wanted to get back at them. It was an opportunity for them to do that. They weren’t going to give up just because they were down four scores.”
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