In what was a preview of the opening round of districts, the West Platte football team (3-6) had struggles on the road against Penney (3-6) with the Blue Jays losing 48-6 on Oct. 21.
With the KCI clash being the regular season finale, seedings came down to the last week. Given where the rest of the Class 1 District 8 team’s records were, the West Platte versus Penney matchup was all but locked in for two straight weeks.
What the game really came down to was the winner would host the postseason game the following week. The regular season finale was at Penney and that will be the same matchup and location for West Platte on Oct. 21 for the first round.
“We just had too many mistakes and turnovers in a big moment in the middle of the game,” West Platte head coach Jim Newsted said. “We will have a chance to redeem ourselves this Friday as we go back to Penney and hopefully, we can come out and shake the last game off and play the type of football we are capable of playing.”
The Blue Jays’ defense came out of the gate with two consecutive stops, causing the Hornets to punt in their first two drives. The West Platte offense also had some success moving the ball early in a scoreless first quarter and the second quarter started with the Blue Jays having a fresh set of downs on their own 20.
“We looked poised to score after a nice drive that took five minutes off the clock, however, we fell short on 4th and two on their 12-yard line. We had run a jet sweep earlier that got some good yards so we went back to it on 4th and three, but a missed blocking assignment resulted in us coming up a yard short in their red zone,” Newsted said.
The Hornets buzzed to 22 straight points from that point on, including 16 of those points being in the first half. After West Platte came up short in the red zone, Penney did the same thing as the home team turned the ball over on downs at the Blue Jay 3-yard line.
While West Platte kept Penney out of the end zone, Gunner Smith was taken down in the Blue Jays end zone two plays later for a Hornet safety. Penney scored two more touchdowns – converting on one of two 2-point conversion attempts – to take a 16-0 lead at the break before
West Platte’s Afton Buckler had 118 yards from scrimmage in the Blue Jays 48-6 loss to Penney on Oct. 21.
adding a 43-yard passing touchdown in the first four minutes of the third quarter to go up 22-0.
“Coming up short in our own redzone has kind of been our Achilles heel this season and they took that as a momentum swing and rode until midway through the third quarter. Momentum is a huge thing in a big football game, and they got it and rode it for awhile.”
The West Platte offense turned the ball over five times – two fumbles and three interceptions – to give the Hornets multiple scoring opportunities. The Blue Jays ended the 22-0 scoring run with a 35-yard touchdown run by Afton Buckler with 5:27 to play in the third quarter, which cut the deficit to 22-8 after Dalton Woodward ran in for the 2-point conversion.
“After we scored, the Hornets responded quickly with a touchdown of their own and then they ran away with it. We’re a much better team than the score showed tonight,” Newsted said.
Buckler led the team in rushing and receiving on the night as he finished the game with 65 yards rushing and 53 yards receiving for a total 118 total yards. The Blue Jays finished the night with of 207 yards of total offense, while Penney had 573 offensive yards.