Mark Kolmer delivered a message to the guys who block for him before Emporia High’s game Friday night against Seaman: Give me holes, and I’ll run through them.
Simple to say — and then the Spartans went out and made it look easier done than said.
Both Kolmer and the offensive line held up their ends of the bargain, and the Spartans moved the chains again and again, rarely even giving Seaman’s offense the chance to get its hands on the ball. Emporia rolled to a 31-13 homecoming win, and Kolmer finished with workhorse numbers: 38 carries, 198 yards.
“Mark came to us in the locker room before the game and said, ‘If you guys open holes, I’ll run the ball,’” right guard TJ Heins said. “Well, we worked together as a team, we opened holes, and Mark ran. And we could’ve made some better, and Mark would’ve made more gains, but we got the job done overall and won the game.”
Kolmer ran for two touchdowns, a one-yard plunge with five minutes left in the first half that tied the game at 7-7, and a six yard toss cutback run in which he ran over Seaman’s Jacob Hurla to make it 21-7 with 7:24 left in the third quarter. He kept moving the ball six yards here, eight yards there, and a couple of impressive 19-yard runs thrown in for good measure. Seaman couldn’t stop the Spartan line, so they couldn’t stop Kolmer.
“Mark Kolmer ran really hard, and our line — I can’t say enough about our front line,” Emporia coach Bill Lowe said. “They just gashed ’em up front and just kept pounding on ’em. And we really wore ’em down the second half.”
Kolmer said after battling an ankle injury early in the season, it’s felt good to get as many carries as he has the past two weeks. He ran for 102 yards last week in the Spartans’ comeback win at Washburn Rural.
“I know beginning of the season, (I was) a little worried,” he said. “But now, I mean, good coaching just helped kept me focused, and (I’m) ready to go.”
Field position helped the Spartans overcome an early 7-0 deficit. Taylor Euler, starting in the secondary for the second straight week and playing most of the game at safety, picked off the first pass of his career when linebacker Sheldon Patton got a hand on Robbie Rea’s pass over the middle. Euler caught the tip over his shoulder near the Emporia 35 and ran back to the Seaman 46 with 9:10 left in the first half. Then Euler lined up under center, and he and the Spartan offense went to work to finally get in the end zone.
Kolmer carried on the first five plays of the ensuing drive for 34 yards, and on a 3rd-and-13 from the 18, Euler hit Brandon Gentz on a slant for a 15-yard gain that set the Spartans up with 1st-and-goal. Two plays later, Kolmer kept up the middle and fell into the end zone, and Brian Dorsey’s extra point evened the score.
The Vikings tried a fake punt on their next drive, snapping the ball to Justin Vanderbogart on 4th-and-7 from their own 43. But Cord Stanley took Vanderbogart down two yards shy of the sticks, and Emporia took over on downs, again with a nice starting point in Viking territory.
On the Spartans’ next offensive play, Euler was in the grasp of a Seaman defender when he just got away a pitch to Corey Bacon on the right side, who scampered 13 yards for a first down. Kolmer broke a 19-yard run up the middle two plays later to set Emporia up at the 11, and Euler finished the drive with a one-yard keeper off the right guard to give Emporia a 14-7 lead with one minute left in the half.
Kolmer had 96 yards rushing in the first half, and EHS simply stuck with what had worked. He carried five more times on the opening drive of the second half and ended it with the six-yard scoring run.
After a three-and-out by Seaman, Emporia ate more than five minutes off the clock before Euler’s 1-yard scoring leap with 4.2 seconds left in the third quarter made it 28-7. Then the Spartans cranked out a seven-plus-minute drive in the fourth that ended with a 23-yard field goal by Dorsey.
A 17-yard touchdown throw from Hurla to Adam Gill at the end of the game made the final score look more respectable, but Emporia had dominated. The Spartans had rolled up 300 yards on the ground and held Seaman to just 70 yards rushing, 49 of which came on the Vikings’ meaningless final drive.
So after last week’s comeback and this week’s decisive win, do the Spartans feel like they’re on track?
“Well, this helps a lot,” Lowe said. “We’ve got a big game next week with Manhattan, but at least we’ve got a little confidence now, and we feel like we’re starting to get where we need to be.
“The last three games are the ones that really count, so we just gotta keep trying to improve.”
Friday at Welch Stadium
Seaman (1-4, 0-3) 7 0 0 6 — 13
Emporia (3-2, 1-2) 0 14 14 3 — 31
First quarter
SEA — Vanderbogart 34 pass from Rea (Lutz kick)
Second quarter
EMP — Kolmer 1 run (Dorsey kick)
EMP — Euler 1 run (Dorsey kick)
Third quarter
EMP — Kolmer 6 run (Dorsey kick)
EMP — Euler 1 run (Dorsey kick)
Fourth quarter
EMP — Dorsey 23 FG
SEA — Gill 17 pass from Hurla (no conversion try; end of game)
GAME STATISTICS
SEA EMP
First downs 7 18
Rushing yards 69 300
Comp-Att-Int 9-15-2 3-4-0
Passing yards 131 34
Total yards 200 334
Fumbles-lost 1-0 0-0
Penalties-yards 1-5 3-10
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing — SEA: Hurla 1-28, Vanderbogart 5-14, Johnson 2-14, Dunham 5-10, Rea 6-2, Benoit 3-1; EMP: Kolmer 38-198, Bacon 7-49, Euler 13-37, Keisler 4-13, Gentz 2-2, Gaskill 1-1.
Passing — SEA: Rea 7-12-107, 2 INT; Hurla 2-3-24; EMP: Euler 2-3-22, Gentz 1-2-12.
Receiving — SEA: Hurla 4-45, Vanderbogart 3-41, Piecukonis 1-28, Gill 1-17; EMP: Gentz 1-15, Euler 1-12, Keisler 1-7.