Emporia High coach Bill Lowe and the Spartans had a plan going into Friday night’s matchup with Blue Valley West.
The plan was to use as much clock as possible on offense to keep Blue Valley West’s high-octane offense off the field, while cutting out any mistakes.
It nearly worked to perfection.
But a fumble and a couple of defensive breakdowns allowed Blue Valley West to sneak out of Welch Stadium with a 21-14 victory.
“We were doing what I thought we could do, but then they made plays and we didn’t,” Lowe said. “We have that attitude when something bad happens, we can’t recover from it. We just had a couple breakdowns that hurt us. We’ve got to find a way to get to that next level to be a championship team. We’ve got to find a way to put somebody away and win a game like that.
“We had every chance to win.”
For three and a half quarters, the Spartan offense ate up chunks of yards with a power running game and didn’t have a single turnover, while the EHS defense kept the Jaguars mostly in check.
The Spartans’ troubles began midway through the fourth quarter when, with EHS leading 14-7, running back Edd Noonan took a handoff and burst through the right side for a gain of nearly 30 yards.
But an illegal shift penalty negated the play, and the EHS drive ended three plays later.
Blue Valley West, despite playing without wide receiver and Division-I prospect Taylor Embree because of a hamstring injury, used an eight-play, 67-yard drive that consisted entirely of passes to make it 14-14 when quarterback Mike Besler hit Aaron Ashley in the end zone for a seven-yard score, Besley’s second touchdown pass of the night.
That’s when things started to fall apart for the Spartans, senior defensive end Miles Ringgold said.
“We had a couple big breakdowns,” Ringgold said of the Blue Valley West score. “We got down for a play, and we should have stayed up. We got a little down on ourselves because we let a play go.”
On Emporia’s next drive, Noonan took a handoff up the middle at the 33-yard line and fumbled, giving the Jaguars the ball and all the momentum on the Spartan side of the field.
“We’ve just got to find a way to respond differently when something bad happens,” Lowe said. “We believe we can, but we’re still looking for a couple of guys who can do it for us.”
It took all of two plays for Blue Valley West to capitalize on the turnover, as Besler capped his night with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Alex Gibb to put the Jaguars on top for good, 21-14.
Besler finished 17-for-28 for 235 yards and three touchdowns in leading Blue Valley West to 305 total yards compared to 258 for EHS. Even in Embree’s absence, the Jaguar receivers flourished, as Gibb caught four passes for 78 yards and a score while Russell Simons made five catches for 112 yards, plus a 57-yard, second-quarter touchdown.
“They made some great plays and made some great catches,” Lowe said. “We’ve just got to find a way to respond.”
The night couldn’t have started much better for the Spartans, as they began the game with a lengthy scoring drive, forced two three-and-outs and held Blue Valley West on a fourth-down-conversion attempt.
“Our defense was real fired up in the beginning, and we kept it going,” Ringgold said. “We stopped them with a few three-and-outs and came out pumped up and ready to go. I thought we played pretty hard.”
The Jaguars received the ball to start the game and promptly marched down the field, eventually making it to the EHS 30-yard line before the drive stalled.
On fourth-and-15 from the 30, Besler tried to hit Hunter Bakke in the end zone, but Spartan defensive back Seth Torres tipped the ball out of Bakke’s reach.
The Spartans then went on a 14-play, 70-yard drive that was capped by a three-yard Noonan touchdown run to put EHS ahead 7-0. On the touchdown run, Spartan quarterback Taylor Euler faked a handoff to fullback Craig Turner that fooled nearly everyone as Noonan darted in for the score through the right side.
Noonan finished the night with 22 carries for 149 yards and two touchdowns.
Blue Valley West got on the board late in the second quarter when Besler hit Simons for what looked to be about a 10-yard gain. But Simons shed several tackles and raced downfield for the 57-yard score to tie the game at 7.
“That was terrible tackling. That was a lack of effort,” Lowe said. “He wanted it a lot more than we did. It was a great effort by their kid and bad tackling by us.”
Noonan put the Spartans back on top with a one-yard touchdown run with 5:25 left in the third quarter that capped a 13-play, 78-yard drive to make the score 14-7.
But then came the penalties and the turnover, from which the Spartans never recovered.
“They shouldn’t have, but I think they really did hurt us,” senior lineman-tight end Eric Dorsey said of the errors. “It shouldn’t hurt us at all because we’ve got to keep our heads up and keep going. But those little things — they got one or two big plays, we got a penalty or two, a little breakdown here and there — those things hurt us.”
In all, the Spartans rushed for 230 yards, while sophomore quarterback Euler finished the night 3-for-4 for 28 yards passing.
That the Spartans hung with Blue Valley West for so long could be considered a vast improvement when compared to last year’s season-opening 49-14 loss to Seaman.
But Lowe said he is not satisfied with simply playing well.
“It wasn’t like our guys didn’t play hard,” Lowe said. “They played their tails off, and I’m proud of them for that. But you get tired of that. You want a win.”