Kearney Catholic outpaces Minden in wild 42-19 victory

Big game, bigger plays.

Kearney Catholic had four touchdowns of 48-yards or greater in its 42-19 victory over Minden on Thursday.

The Whippets were just as explosive, having three plays greater than 33 yards.

In the first quarter, the football game could better be described as a track meet, with each team scoring on its first few plays.

To open the game, Kearney Catholic got a 51-yard rushing score from Pete Homan, shedding two tacklers he met at the first level.

Minden's Orrin Kuehn was up to the challenge of topping that, going 67 yards on an outside toss play for his touchdown.

The Stars then took to the air for their first passing touchdown, with quarterback Jake Bosshamer finding Owen Axmann down the sideline on a 48-yard go route.

Kuehn again answered with two big speed option runs, going 44 yards to put the Whippets in the red zone, where he scored on a 15-yard touchdown.

Kearney Catholic got one more score in before the first quarter ended, with a 37-yard completion to Axmann setting up a Homan rushing touchdown.

"It was a track meet, that's pretty tough on the kids, its not what we wanted as coaches, but they responded well," Kearney Catholic head coach Rashawn Harvey said.

The second quarter took a dramatically different tone, with no scoring until the final play.

Kearney Catholic adjusted on defense, closing off the outside and sticking to its assignments. Those adjustments held up until the final drive.

Following a crucial fourth down conversion, Minden had time for one final play with seven seconds left and 33 yards to the end zone.

Minden went with a crossfield screen pass to Kuehn, who had all the downfield blocking he needed to race into the end zone as time expired.

"We'd seen their coverage, and we figured it would be hard to throw," Minden head coach Jebb Hatch said. "Of course the receivers had all kinds of ideas, but I figured the screen would be there if we had guys to block the DBs on the five-yard line, and obviously they were there."

"When we gave up the big screen, it was because someone decided they weren't going in the flat like they were supposed to, they were gonna blitz," Harvey said. "Every one of those touchdowns some guy didn't do their job. Coach Darrell Morris always used to say football is the greatest team sport, because if one guy doesn't do his job, it exposes the whole team."

With a dominant first quarter of offense, and dominant second quater of defense, Kearney Catholic got the two sides working in tandem in the third.

The Stars opened the half with a defensive stop, but were pinned back deep on offense after one a few excellent punts from Minden's Luke Grollmes.

The poor field position turned into a 90-yard touchdown from Bosshamer to tight end Jake Geiser.

Stops leading to big plays was the theme of the second half.

A third down pass breakup by Trey May flipped possession to the Stars, where May caught a 33-yard touchdown pass.

Minden had its best scoring chance midway through the fourth, getting back to the red zone, but it couldn't connect on a fourth-down pass to the end zone.

The very next play, Homan took an outside zone handoff 85 yards for a score.

"That was a great play by coach [Lance] Fox up there in the box, he said let's run outside zone," Harvey said. "We were going to have our No. 2 receiver on the other side, but I moved him over so he could block the overhanging linebacker, and he had a great block there,"

"They started flowing to the outside, but Pete put his foot in the ground and just got vertical. He showed some speed we didn't think he had."

The loss puts Minden at 1-3 on the season, but the Whippets had their best offensive performance, a welcome sign after scoring seven points in the previous two contests.

"I think we'll be able to hang our hat on a few things tonight, there were a lot of things that were working for us, we just need to be a little more consistent," Hatch said. "The penalties killed us, I think we was one drive where we punted where we didn't have some huge penalties, not to take anything away from them, we didn't have as many big plays as they did."

Minden next has a home game against Holdrege (2-1).

Kearney Catholic now sits at 4-0 headed into district play.

The Stars open district play with a home contest against Amherst (2-1), set to take place on the new Stars Stadium at Miles Field.