Conway Springs scores early and often on Trojans
By BO ALLEGRUCCI
Salina Journal
CONWAY SPRINGS - Beloit finally dug itself too deep of a hole against too good of an opponent Friday in Conway Springs.
After spotting Phillipsburg a 13-0 lead in their only regular-season loss and Norton a 14-0 head start in Saturday's 34-17 playoff win, the Trojans punted or fumbled on their first four possessions Friday while Conway Springs scored on its first four drives to build a 24-0 halftime lead.
The Cardinals cruised from there to a 44-12 Class 3A quarterfinal win, and Beloit's season ends at 10-2 after the Trojans' deepest postseason push since their 1996 state championship.
"I thought our guys prepared well, but things snowballed on us early," Beloit head coach Greg Koenig said. "That might be sign of our youth or playoff inexperience, but I don't want to blame it on that - we got beat by a better team. They outhit us, outexecuted us and outperformed us. They execute their offense well, and obviously, they have a great defense too."
Beloit knew all about Conway Springs quarterback Caleb Brill and Oklahoma signee Jaydan Bird, who had combined for almost 3,500 rushing yards and 40 touchdowns operating out of the old fashioned, single-wing offense that brought the Cardinals five state titles and a 62-game win streak during the last decade.
It was senior wingback Corey Sones, however, who snuck up and stung Beloit repeatedly in the first half Friday. Sones - a 5-foot-6, 155-pound steamroller - scored the first three times he touched the ball, taking the same counter-misdirection play to the house from 14, 35 and 65 yards out, in that order.
"They just ran that counter play and had a bigger, stronger kid kicking us out at the point of attack," Koenig said. "They found a mismatch and did some good things with it to give us some trouble, and I think our kids started looking in the backfield instead of reading their line. We knew that play was part of their arsenal, we just didn't step up and stop it."
Brill also scored on a 17-yard sweep late in the first quarter, but Conway Springs missed the PAT on all four of its first-half touchdowns to leave it a three-possession game at the half.
Beloit needed a stop after the intermission to get back in the game, but instead, Conway Springs took the second-half kickoff and went 76 yards in seven plays to put the game out of reach. Brill busted a 45-yard run down the right sideline to set up his own 6-yard score on the next play, and the Cards' junior triggerman finished with 18 carries for 220 yards and four scores.
"We didn't get the defensive stop we needed early in the second half, and that was a back-breaker," Koenig said. "The strategy for us defensively was to get a push up front to keep their pulling lineman from creating the holes that they did tonight. I'll tell you what though, they're big and they're fast and they're strong, and that gave us more trouble than the misdirections or anything else. They just overwhelmed us. They found our young guys and went at them, and that's great coaching and execution on their part."
Beloit finally found the end zone with a 10-play, 61-yard drive and a 2-yard Logan Eck run with 4:30 left in the third quarter. Two plays into the subsequent Cardinal series, Trojan senior Braden Hager forced and recovered a fumble at the Conway Springs 26, and Jordan File later scored from 4 yards out to cut the lead to 32-12 heading into the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately for Beloit, the Cardinals opened that fourth quarter with a 12-play, 81-yard march and a 25-yard Brill touchdown dash. After the Trojans turned the ball over on downs with 3:02 remaining, Brill bolted 47 yards untouched on the next play to ice the cake.
Conway Springs totaled 452 yards rushing as a team, with Sones (115) and Bird (103) topping the century mark alongside Brill. The 6-3, 210-pound Bird passed 2,000 yards for the season and also made 18 tackles on defense - most of which looked and sounded more like car accidents.
Eck led Beloit with 22 rushes for 116 yards, and Cas Spangler carried 23 times for 93 yards in his final high school game, surpassing 2,000 on the ground for the second straight season.
This is the third time a Trojan football campaign has ended in Conway Springs, with the Cardinals taking Beloit out in 1997 and '98 - the second of which led to the Cards' first 3A state title.
