Platte County finally put the finishing touches on a win again.
Mired in a string of disappointing second half showings, the Pirates were in control after halftime in a 36-13 win over Winnetonka in a Class 4 District 8 first round matchup Friday, Nov. 1 at Pirate Stadium. Platte County had scored just 13 points total in the second half of their previous five games — a stretch that included a pair of losses sandwiched around a 20-14 escape of a victory in Week 8 against the same Winnetonka team.
In the rematch, Platte County junior quarterback Chris Ruhnke threw three first half touchdowns, and junior running back Cayden Davis put up 178 of his career-high 194 rushing yards and both of his touchdowns in the second half. The Pirates had two touchdown drives and two more that ended in field goal tries after halftime, although senior kicker Grant Allen went 1-for-2 on those attempts.
“Winnetonka, was in my opinion, the toughest matchup the first round with what we do and what they do and how it finished two weeks ago,” Platte County coach Bill Utz said. “They should’ve come in with loads of confidence. They’re a good ball club. They play hard, have some tremendous talent and coach (Bennie) Palmer puts them in the right position. They’ve been much improved over the last couple of years, and it showed again tonight.”
Platte County (7-3) held on to the No. 2 seed in Class 4 District 8 despite losing two of the last three in the regular season. The Pirates now have a second straight rematch when they host No. 3 seed Smithville (9-1) this Friday in a district semifinal. The Warriors advanced with an interesting 60-45 victory over Kearney, which trailed 34-7 but fought back to make the matchup interesting a week after losing 34-0 in the same matchup to close the regular season.
Incidentally, Platte County’s string of second half struggles started with a 15-0 win over Smithville in Week 5 when Davis scored a 25-yard rushing touchdown early in the fourth quarter to punctuate a dominant win. Those were the only points after halftime in what has been the Warriors’ only loss this season.
ROSS MARTIN/Special to the Citizen
Platte County offensive lineman Wyett Wallingford (79) lifts running back Cayden Davis up after a touchdown run against Winnetonka in the a Class 4 District 8 game on Friday, Nov. 2.
Platte County ended up sharing the Suburban Conference Blue Division championship with Smithville following the Pirates’ upset loss to Grandview in the regular season finale. They now need to beat the Warriors for a second time this season to earn a fifth straight trip to Class 4 District 8 title game.
Smithville was the last team to beat Platte County in a district semifinal back in 2014, and the Warriors won last year’s rematch in the district championship game on the way to a state semifinal appearance.
“Whenever we’ve had a loss this year, we’ve bounced back,” Platte County senior defensive end Garret Watson said. “The thing is we have to keep that momentum going into this next week because we’re playing back here at ‘The Black Hole’ against someone we lost to here in districts last year. It’s a big game for us, and we need to go out and just put it on them from the start and keep it on them.”
In a district featuring seven of eight teams with winning records, Platte County (7-3) faced a difficult opener against a resurgent Winnetonka squad (5-5) likely feeling confident. The Griffins scored the last 14 points of the first matchup and held possession in the final seconds with a chance to tie or win the game.
Platte County led just 21-13 at halftime of the rematch but took the opening possession of the third quarter and methodically marched inside the 5 but ultimately settled for a 20-yard field goal from Allen to make the lead two possessions at 24-13 with 5 minutes, 19 seconds left in the third quarter.
Winnetonka had twice answered scores with touchdowns of their own in the first half and reached Platte County territory on the ensuing drive. Faced with a fourth and 1, the Griffins went for it, and Montre Moore, who ran for 101 yards on 23 carries, came up a chain link short at the 45.
On the next play, Davis ripped off a 54-yard run down to the 1 and then scored on the next play and despite a missed extra point, the Pirates were up 30-13 and in control.
“It was nice to finish the game the way we did,” Platte County coach Bill Utz said. “I wouldn’t say there was really any strategic adjustments that took place at halftime but more bringing it to their attention that we need to finish games a little better. We haven’t played very well for the last three weeks so it’s nice to get this one. We feel good about it.”
Platte County made another fourth-down stop on the first play of the fourth quarter to stall a long drive that ended in no points. Davis and senior running back Trey Phan (11 carries, 62 yards) were all of the offense on the ensuring drive that went 83 yards in 2:01.
After a lengthy delay for an injury to a Winnetonka player, Davis finished off the march with a 22-yard touchdown run around left end to account for the game’s final points. Davis had two 22-yard runs on the drive, and Phan added a 24-yarder.
Ruhnke didn’t attempt a pass in the fourth quarter, and Platte County imposed its will in the ground game rotating eight offensive linemen through the lineup during the game. That included senior Wyett Wallingford back at left guard for a second straight game, senior Max Renner again swapping spots with him at left tackle and senior Kevin Fagan playing both right guard and right tackle. Pirates senior Luke Siegel was the center, while senior Trey Butcher also played right tackle, and seniors Gunner Tongate and Jonathan Owen — split starters early in the season before Fagan moved to the offensive side of the ball — both saw the field, as well.
“I felt like the second half they were getting really tired, that Winnetonka was getting tired, and we pretty much ran it down their throats,” Davis said. “The linemen are doing amazing, and when we can shift people through like that and have more than just the five starters and get six, seven guys in there, it’s amazing.”
Platte County alternated the good with the bad to start the game but avoided gifting the underdogs any momentum. Watson stalled the game’s opening drive with a blindside first-down sack of Winnetonka junior quarterback Jovan Satterwhite, but following the punt, the Griffins took the ball near midfield after recovering a strip sack of Ruhnke.
Winnetonka ended up forced to punt after a three-and-out, and despite downing the kick at Platte County’s 3 soon fell behind for good.
Ruhnke started the drive after a delay of game penalty with a 16-yard completion to senior wide receiver Hunter Clarkson, and after two strong runs from Davis, Ruhnke hit senior wide receiver Colby Rollins behind the defense for a 67-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 4:12 left in the first quarter.
“That’s a nice little duo in that sense,” Utz said. “Chris threw a great ball to where only Colby could get it, and Colby gave tremendous effort to get there.”
Platte County’s next two drives also ended in touchdown passes — a tackle-breaking 14-yarder to junior wide receiver Dayton Mitchell, who lunged the ball over the goal line, and a 47-yarder to Rollins behind the defense. Mitchell came up with three of his team-high four receptions on the drive that ended with his touchdown and finished with 57 yards. Rollins had one catch on each of the three first half scoring drives to account for all of his team-high 132 receiving yards.
Ruhnke finished 12 of 24 for 254 yards with Clarkson (two catches, 30 yards), Phan (two catches, 21 yards) and senior wide receiver Donny Maccuish (one catch, 14 yards) rounding out Platte County’s pass-catchers. Ruhnke only had the one miscue on the fumble coming off a three-interception performance in the tough upset loss to Grandview a week earlier.
“He had a nice game, not even his stat line per se,” Utz said. “The stat line was great, but he made some good decisions that we needed to see him make and it was nice to see him bounce back that way.”
Winnetonka answered Mitchell’s touchdown catch with a quick touchdown drive to get within 14-6 after a failed two-point conversion, and the Griffins marched back after Rollins’ second TD catch to close the gap to 21-13, a score that held until halftime.
Satterwhite finished with 269 yards passing and 55 more rushing, while wide receivers Anthony Triplett (six catches, 115 yards), Jackson Moss (four catches, 67 yards) and Jason Essex (six catches, 51 yards) were again a difficult matchup for the Pirates’ secondary. The Griffins totaled 419 yards of offense to Platte County’s 491 but couldn’t complete any scoring drives after halftime.
“We bent a little bit, but didn’t break,” Utz said.
Platte County senior safety Will Hay led the defense with 10 tackles, while junior safety Spencer Cupp added nine, senior linebacker Gabe Harmon eight, Watson seven and junior safety Luke Filger — filling in for senior Trent Rueckert, back from injury but limited on snaps — had six.
Watson had both of Platte County’s sacks while Hay had an interception for a second straight week in his strongest sequence of performances on the season.
“I’m just feeding off the energy that our defense puts out,” said Watson, who now has 13½ sacks on the season and is now just four off the single-season school record of 17½ Michael Smith set in 2017. “Today, we played three good quarters of football. Second quarter was kind of rough, so we went in there at halftime and all the captains talked and got everyone up. We went back out there, and the thing I said to our D-line is we are one of the best D-lines in the state this year and that we weren’t showing it in the first half. We just needed to go out there and prove who we are as a unit.”
Platte County and Smithville have now faced off in the Class 4 District 8 tournament in all eight seasons under the current postseason format. Platte County has gone 4-3 in those meetings including semifinal victories in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
However, Smithville won last year’s title game 33-28 to reverse the regular season result, and despite losing this year’s matchup, the Warriors have now won five straight and finished the regular season at No. 6 in the Class 4 media poll. Platte County’s late stumbles in a blowout loss to Class 6-ranked Raymore-Peculiar and Grandview dropped the Pirates to No. 9, meaning they were ranked well behind and forced them to share the conference title with a team they shut out a few weeks ago.
Davis had his previous career-best game with 183 yards rushing in the win over Smithville earlier this season with the Warriors locked into a three-man front that struggled against the ground game
“Smithville’s going to make changes to the defense so we can’t run as much so we’ll see what happens,” Davis said.
The other semifinal in Class 4 District 8 features No. 1 seed Lincoln Prep (10-0) and No. 4 seed Excelsior Springs (7-3), a 28-24 win over fifth-seeded Lafayette. With a win, Lincoln Prep would host, but Excelsior Springs would have to travel to either Smithville or Platte County for the championship game.