La Crosse senior all-purpose threat Andrew Jay said the Leopards had “zero momentum” going into their eventual game-clinching drive last Friday at Minneapolis. La Crosse led 33-9 at half, but the Lions tallied 20 unanswered points after the break.
“Minneapolis had every bit of momentum in the stadium,” Jay said. “Everybody was yelling for them, everybody was shouting. I know that we strive off of that.”
The Leopards mounted a drive that ran more than 10 plays and milked around eight minutes off the clock. La Crosse eventually had a penalty and didn’t score, but the drive helped the Leopards escape with a four-point road win.
The drive encapsulated the first three weeks for La Crosse, ranked No. 1 in Class 2-1A. The Leopards have made plays when it needed in quality wins against Olpe, Larned and Minneapolis, but have hurt themselves often, too.
The Leopards have won 40 straight regular season contests, Kansas’ longest current run, and have won the three games this fall by a combined 31 points. Coupled with a 14-7 victory in Week 2 when La Crosse scored the winning TD in the final minute against Larned, La Crosse has had the first and third closest margins in the run the last two weeks.
“I think it really boils down to focus, because when we decide that we want to play well, we can,” coach Jon Webster said. “The last drive we went on in the Minneapolis game. … That’s a really good drive against a team that had all of the momentum, and we made some plays on that drive.”
This week, La Crosse travels to Gypsum-Southeast of Saline, a quality Class 3A opponent also at 3-0. The game was the Fan’s Choice for Game of the Week at Kpreps.com.
“I haven’t seen a full game completed, not only out of myself, but out of all my teammates, too,” Jay said. “There is still a lot of room to improve.”
Like the Leopards, the Trojans believe they haven’t played a full game either. SES defeated Sacred Heart 54-13, Chapman 21-12 and Russell 46-17. At the scheduling meeting last fall, La Crosse and SES were the only teams that didn’t have a Week 4 game.
Both squads have star power at multiple positions. La Crosse has quarterback Jack Garcia, end/fullback Sheldon Schmidt and Jay. SES counters with quarterback Cody Schlesener, running back Kayden Besher and lineman Aidan Murray.
“We have started very well,” Trojan coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “I honestly don’t think we have put four quarters of football together yet, but I think offensively, we have come out of the gate pretty good. Anytime you have a quarterback back from the year before, things seem to go smoother in the beginning. Cody has done a great job of managing our football games for us.”
Gebhardt called the defensive line the team’s strength with four to five players who have seen frequent time during the last several years. Murray is in his third year as a starter and has a team-high eight sacks and 15.5 tackles, second-most on the team. Besher, a three-year starter on defense, has 6.5 tackles for loss and has blocked two kicks.
“The great thing about Aidan is he continues to get better every single game,” Gebhardt said. “When we watch game film on him, we are like, ‘Wow, how did he make that play?’ I think one of the great things about Aidan is both his strength and his speed. He is a very, very strong kid in the weight room, but he is very fast on the football field. He is hard for quarterbacks to get away from.”
Offensively, SES has run spread for several years, but has taken some snaps under center this fall after it took no snaps under center the last two seasons. Schlesener has completed 27 of 54 passes for 460 yards with seven scores against no interceptions. Besher leads the Trojans with 43 carries for 319 yards and four scores. Besher, a two-year offensive starter, moved from receiver to running back this summer and has been impressive.
“Experience has helped him a lot,” Gebhardt said of Schlesener. “His decision making, where to get the ball, he does a lot better job, especially in the passing game of finding the open receiver, maybe not always looking for the deep ball. He still likes to throw it, but he will pass up on the deep ball if somebody is open short.”
La Crosse, known for usually blowing through its regular season, has been more banged up this season through three games than past years. Webster believes the main reason is because of the tougher games. The injuries include sophomore Clayton Herdman (ankle, done for the year), junior Alex Jay (deep bone bruise) and senior Cole Kershner (hip). All three are starters; Kershner is expected to be fine for Friday.
“I think there is some positives to both – having some quality opponents on your schedule is good to find out where you are at, but having some games that you really roll and can put teams away early, that’s good because it gives the starters some reps off,” Webster said.
Jay has 514 all-purpose yards, Schmidt has 311 rushing yards with seven sacks, while Garcia has completed just 17 of 40 passes for 441 yards with five scores against four interceptions. La Crosse has seven turnovers and is minus-2 in turnover margin. The Leopards also have averaged 72 penalty yards per game; opponents have 36 a contest. But La Crosse has averaged 379 yards of offense per game; the Leopards had 378 per contest en route to a state runner-up finish in 2013.
“We have the potential to be a really, really good football team, but we haven’t put it all together, and hopefully we woke up last week – really the last two weeks – to how bad things can get for us if we don’t play,” Webster said. “I think our seniors have done a better job at practice this week as far as keeping kids on the right path and the seniors themselves are a little bit more focused.”
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