The Emporia High Spartans are feeling pretty good about themselves, and rightfully so.
The football team is off to its best start in years with a 4-1 record overall, sits at the top of the Centennial League standings and has league bottom-feeder Highland Park (1-4, 1-2) at home at Welch Stadium this Friday for Homecoming.
So why are the Spartans so serious about their game this week?
Because they don’t want to experience what they dealt Shawnee Heights last week — a Homecoming loss.
“Coach (Bill) Lowe has made sure that won’t happen. We’ve had a pretty tough week of practice,” sophomore quarterback Taylor Euler said. “We’re not overlooking Highland Park at all. We’re taking them seriously, and hopefully we’ll get a big win.”
Emporia High will play host to the Scots with a lot on the line.
Not only would a victory be the first Homecoming win in years, but it also would give the Spartans an undefeated league record at 5-0 heading into district play the following week.
“Everybody is pumped to play,” senior defensive lineman James Sparks said. “I can’t think of anything better for my senior year than to be 5-0 in the league and hopefully making it to state.
“We just can’t take Highland Park lightly. On any given day, you can get beat if you’re not playing to your full potential. The defense has to do its job, and the offense has to move the ball and put points on the board.”
After Emporia’s 17-15 victory over Shawnee Heights last Friday in which the Spartan offense struggled at times to consistently move the ball, Lowe vowed to get back to playing the smash-mouth brand of football he expects to see from his offense.
“I want to be fundamentally sound and do the little things right,” Lowe said. “We just have to block better, and hopefully we can improve on that. We’ve got a lot of different things we can do, but we’ve got to put some points on the board and keep drives alive. We’ve been good at keeping some drives alive, but we haven’t been consistently good at it.”
The Spartans will get a big boost in their quest for greater offensive efficiency, as senior fullback Craig Turner will return from a knee injury that has kept him out of action the past three weeks.
Turner was a crucial figure in the running game, blocking for running backs Edd Noonan and Mark Kolmer, before he went down, and he said he is ready to get back out on the field after watching from the sidelines as the Spartans picked up three wins in his absence.
“I just hope to help get a little more power going with our offense,” Turner said. “I hope our offense can step up and not make our defense have to win the game for us this week. To come home and play again in front of our fans in our home stadium, it should be great.”
Highland Park is coming off a 42-13 loss to Washburn Rural. The Scots’ lone victory of the season came in the form of a 12-10 victory over Topeka High, a team Emporia High beat 35-0 earlier this season.
Highland Park actually led Washburn Rural 7-0 early in the contest before the Junior Blues scored 42 unanswered points to win going away.
The Scots are led by the duo of Cortney and James Caraway. Cortney is Highland Park’s quarterback, and James is the Scots’ tailback, and the two combined for 225 yards of total offense against Washburn Rural.
“They’ve got some talented kids that can really hurt you. They’re a scary team and we’re going to have to play well to win,” Lowe said. “We (the coaches) just keep preaching that to them all week.”
Last week against Shawnee Heights, the Spartan defense bent — the T-Birds out-gained EHS 325-280 in total yards — but certainly did not break, as the EHS defenders came up with a sack, an in-bounds tackle and an interception on the final three plays of the game to seal the victory for the Spartans.
“The defense has stepped up in really big moments when we needed it the most the last few weeks,” Sparks said. “A lot of seniors have stepped up in big situations, like last week against Shawnee Heights.”
But now, the focus this week is squarely on the Scots.
Euler said it will be fun to finally come back to Welch Stadium to play in front of a home crowd after a couple of weeks on the road.
“The whole school and the whole town finally believes in us. We have believers all over the town, not just parents,” Euler said. “It’s good for the team. The stadium is going to be packed and it’s going to be loud.
“It’s going to be a great experience.”
jackdaniels07 (anonymous) says...
i believe you right on with that emporia is a team that i wouldn't have thought to be 4-1 on the season this year they have surpised me and people in topeka are talkin and sayin if only hayden was on the schedule we would know who the real league champion is and to a fact i believe emporia would be the league champion either way they are co-champions after this weekend game against highland park and yes they can beat wichita height and wichita height is actually ranked #2 in class 6A right now in and ranked #3 in the state of kansas but that is goin to be an upset do i see the spartans in the playoffs yes i do but i see 2 straight home games for them and coach lowe but what does the class of 2000 grad know about spartan football since 95 emporia has had 3 new coaches they were mark ludetke former rossville coach,randy wells the ehs head track and field coach and now coach lowe
well thats all i have to say
October 5, 2006 at 5:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )