McPherson High earns first league title since 1978

By STEVE SELL Sentinel Sports Editor
Published: Saturday, October 7, 2006 9:32 AM CDT

It was a championship performance by a championship team.

McPherson High, which hadn't had any type of football league championship since sharing the 1978 Ark Valley League title with Wellington, earned a portion of the Ark Valley Chisholm Trail League Division II title Friday night before an overflow homecoming crowd with a 49-14 rout of Valley Center that saw the Bullpup starters exit the game after piling up a 35-0 lead after a quarter.

That's right, the starters played a quarter. Bullpup coach Tom Young elected to play his reserves to keep his front-line players from getting hurt needlessly.

MHS finished D-II play with a 4-1 record, the same as Campus. Newton moved to 3-1 Friday, but still has Valley Center left to play. But unless the Railers have a colossal meltdown, the league will end in a three-way tie.

But for the Bullpups, all the focus is on the district schedule, which begins next week at Salina South. It's been nearly 20 years since MHS has carried such overwhelming momentum into “the second season,” and it's been since 1988 since it made the playoffs.

"You worry about distractions for this type of game, but our varsity kids came out and really looked sharp," Young said, as his team is now 4-2 overall. "We've gotten better every week and that was kind of a team goal. We know we've got some good competiton ahead of us. The kids realize how good Salina South is and we've got our work cut out for us. But there's a hunger there and this is really a fun group to coach."

South is 4-2 on the year after being hammered 48-22 Friday by Hutchinson, which defeated MHS 22-12 in the first week of the season.

MHS may have broken a school record when it scored 35 first-quarter points. Michael Barrow intercepted a pass on the third play of the game, resulting in a Camron Thissen 6-yard TD run before the game was even two minutes old.

The other first-period scores were an 8-yard run by Tucker Hawkinson, a dipsy-do 55-yard punt return by James Anderson, a 40-yard TD run by Blake Tillman and a 25-yard interception return by Anderson.

Even with the second unit in during the second quarter, the Bullpups tacked on two more scores, a 60-yard run by Sam Stucky and a 3-yard run by Ross Klein. Klein, who missed last week with a shoulder injury, was in for just a couple of offensive series, yet led the Bullpups with 118 yards on 14 carries.

Amazingly, Valley Center ran a whopping 70 plays to just 33 for MHS, as the Hornets had a pair of lengthy scoring drives against every defender MHS had left on the bench, as every single player got into the game.

"It's been a joy so far this year," Young said. "Tonight obviously we didn't play a very strong opponent, but we know what kind of team Salina South is. I think our schedule has been strong enough that this one light opponent won't hurt us."

The Bullpups have scored 179 points in their last four games while giving up only 34, and most of those have come against the reserve unit.

A couple of interesting notes, Kolin Walk had seven straight PATs and his only punt was boomed for 62 yards, while MHS had only three penalties and no turnovers.

STATISTICS

MHS Listed First

First Downs -- 8, 12. Rushes-Yards -- 30-277; 44-103. Passing -- 3-3-0-41; 12-26-3-131. Punts-Avg. -- 1-62.0; 6-32.2. Fumbles-Lost -- 2-0; 1-0. Penalties-Yards -- 3-15, 4-20.

INDIVIDUALS

Rushing

MHS -- Klein 14-118, Wolf 3-12, Tillman 5-58, Thissen 1-6, Hawkinson 1-8, Turner 3-9, Lolling 1-2, Jarvis (recovered fumble) 1-4, Stucky 1-60.
Valley Center -- Johnson 5-10, Tymony 1-1, Tormey 14-44, Fluker 9-(-3), Giffin 14-51.

Passing
MHS -- Tu. Hawkinson 3-3-0-41.
Valley Center -- Fluker 13-26-3-103.

Receiving
MHS -- Thissen 1-22, Anderson 1-12, Flickinger 1-7.
Valley Center -- Perkins 1-10, Giffin 4-27, Volkmann 1-9, Nordstedt 2-22, Blair 2-37, Torney 1-15, Gulledge 1-11.