Winnetonka had the chance for one final desperation pass toward the end zone. The upset-minded Griffins just didn’t have enough time.
With the final seconds ticking away, Platte County dropped seven defenders back but didn’t need any of them. Instead, Pirates’ defensive end Garret Watson continued his standout senior season with a sack to seal a closer-than-expected 20-14 win over Winnetonka on Friday, Oct. 18 at Pirate Stadium.
Platte County (6-2) avoided dropping back-to-back games and stayed on track to win the Suburban Conference Blue Division title outright for the first time in program history. Watson finished with seven tackles (three for loss), 2½ sacks and a pass defensed — none of the plays bigger than the final stop of Winnetonka junior quarterback Jovan Satterwhite.
“I thought, ‘If (Satterwhite) has more than 3 or 4 seconds to throw the ball, I’m going to be surprised,” Platte County senior middle linebacker Gabe Harmon said. “Our D-line is just phenomenal and makes our jobs really easy when they don’t have much time to throw. We can just go back and cover, so props to them because they won that last play for us — no doubt.”
Holding steady at No. 5 in the most recent Class 4 media poll, Platte County made three big plays stand up to improve to 5-0 in the Blue Division. The Pirates finish the regular season at Grandview (3-5) next week with a chance to add to the shared conference titles won in 2012 and 2018.
ROSS MARTIN/Special to the Citizen
Platte County’s Alex Stearns (58) and Garret Watson (42) celebrates Watson’s sack that ended the game to seal a 20-14 victory against Winnetonka on Friday, Oct. 18 at Pirate Stadium.
The late stop this week guaranteed Platte County at least another share, but the result was far from convincing.
Winnetonka (4-4) scored touchdowns on back-to-back possessions late in the second half, gained 315 yards of offense and controlled time of possession to nearly complete the comeback. The Griffins twice had the ball with a chance to take the lead but couldn’t overcome a 20-0 lead built on two long touchdown runs for Pirates senior running back Trey Phan and a long touchdown pass from junior quarterback Chris Ruhnke to junior wide receiver Colby Rollins.
Platte County came up with the two late stops — one after a potentially costly fumble from Phan — to preserve the win. Winnetonka’s final possession started at the 20, and a 38-yard completion from Satterwhite to Anthony Triplett moved the Griffins to the Pirates’ 34 with 28 seconds left and counting in regulation.
Winnetonka then committed a costly illegal shift penalty and an incomplete pass left just 3 seconds.
On the final snap, Watson reached Satterwhite for the sack to complete a strong effort for a Platte County defense that benefitted from the return of junior defensive tackle Alex Stearns. However, the Pirates were without starting sophomore cornerback Cade Fowler, pressing junior Tae Bailey into a starting role, while senior safety Trent Rueckert left with an injury late in the second half.
Platte County junior defensive tackle Keaton Smith finished with a career-high 15 tackles, while senior safety Will Hay added eight and junior safety Spencer Cupp seven. In addition to Watson pushing his season total to 10½ sacks, senior defensive tackle James Gladden (two), sophomore linebacker Trevor Scott (1½) and sophomore safety Blaine Keuhn had sacks. Scott added five tackles and a forced fumble.
“We were on the field a lot, but that’s not an excuse for little mistakes and missed tackles,” Harmon said. “Yeah, we were a little tired, but I’m not going to use that as a excuse. There should have been zero points on the board so that’s on us.”
Platte County continued a trend of playing close against pesky and steadily improving Winnetonka. However, the start couldn’t have been much better.
Winnetonka took the opening kickoff, gained an initial first down but faced a punting situation at its own 40. The Griffins tried a fake punt run that was easily snuffed out. Three plays later, Phan broke through the line for a 33-yard touchdown run on a third and 3 to give the Pirates a 7-0 lead after just 2½ minutes.
The defensive stop was especially important after Platte County surrendered 47 points in a 40-point loss to Class 6-ranked Raymore-Peculiar the week before. The Pirates had won four straight and gone nearly 10 full quarters without giving up a point before Raymore-Peculiar scored on six straight possessions to turn a tight gme into a blowout.
“(The stop) was a confidence booster,” Harmon said. “Last week was a tough loss, and you never want to lose. They were a good team, but we had a lot of little mistakes that we needed to fix.”
Platte County’s momentum carried over with a quick three-and-out after the opening touchdown. Scott sacked Satterwhite and nearly created a turnover on third down, and the ensuing punt went just 22 yards. The Pirates needed just four plays to go 55 yards with Ruhnke hitting Rollins behind the defense for a diving 27-yard touchdown reception to make it 14-0 with 5:55 left in the first quarter.
From there, Platte County’s offense settled into a pattern of short completions and inconsistent running.
“We got off to such a quick start it probably almost hurt us in a sense,” Utz said. “I think everybody kind of took a deep breath, and we never got it going again.”
Ruhnke finished an efficient 15 of 27 for 164 yards with Rollins hauling in three passes for a team-high 70 yards. Dayton Mitchell, the Pirates’ junior leading receiver, had a team-high five catches for 29 yards, while junior running back Cayden Davis had four catches for 27 yards.
Hunter Clarkson, a senior wide receiver, had the only other big play in the passing game — a 25-yard reception that set up Rollins’ touchdown.
Davis needed 13 attempts to gain 64 yards, while Phan had 100 yards on just five attempts, including a 44-yard touchdown run with 4:06 left before halftime. The stars on offense reemerged after a quiet stretch of four games. Phan now has six touchdowns, while Rollins hauled in his fifth touchdown of the season. They combined for nine touchdowns in the first three games but neither had scored since a 51-14 blowout of Kearney in Week 3.
ROSS MARTIN/Special to the Citizen
Platte County’s Trey Phan gets ready to toss the ball to the official after scoring a touchdown against Winnetonka on Friday, Oct. 18 at Pirate Stadium in Platte City.
“I think anybody can be a part of our offense whenever they want. It’s just the way our offense is,” Ruhnke said. “When everybody gets in the right spots, they all have things they do well.”
Due to a bad snap on the extra point after Phan’s second touchdown, Platte County led 20-0 going into halftime with the game seemingly under control. None of the Pirates’ first three drives after halftime reached Winnetonka territory.
Winnetonka started to find success on long passes from Satterwhite to athletic receivers like Triplett and sophomore Jason Essex. A 35-yarder to Triplett late in the third quarter set up a 2-yard touchdown run for Dre Fanning to make it 20-6 after a failed two-point pass.
After Platte County’s third punt of the half, Winnetonka went 89 yards in nine plays with a 5-yard touchdown pass from Satterwhite to Essex. The Griffins lined up to kick the extra point, but after a penalty on the Pirates moved the ball to the 1, Satterwhite ran in the two-point try to make it 20-14 with 7:09 left in regulation.
“Credit to Winnetonka. They kept competing and kept playing, which we’ve seen out of them all year long,” Utz said. “They had the momentum all of the second half and did a good job.”
Winnetonka nearly ended its comeback hopes with a disastrous roughing the passer penalty that turned a third and 11 incompletion into a first down at the Griffins’ 38. The next snap was Platte County’s first on that half of the field in the second half and resulted in Phan losing a fumble.
A holding penalty doomed Winnetonka’s drive, and Platte County took over with 3:05 to go after a punt. The Pirates couldn’t run out the clock, and senior Grant Allen’s punt from the Griffins’ 43 a minute later went into the end zone for a touchback.
“We felt great coming out, just second half we couldn’t do the little things right,” Ruhnke said.
Following the illegal shift penalty on the final drive, a pass into the red zone was dropped, and with Winnetonka needing 39 yards on the final snap for a potential tying or winning touchdown, Platte County’s rush of Watson, Stearns, Boynton and Scott didn’t give Satterwhite enough time for his receivers to reach the end zone.
“We stayed in there and got the win, so we can be happy about that,” Utz said. “Honestly, it’s been a while since we put a whole game together where it’s just clicked the whole time. Part of that is growth; part of that is when a team takes something away, you have to be ready to counter and we haven’t quite mastered that yet.”
Platte County goes into the final week needing to beat Grandview, but the Bulldogs have a deceiving sub-.500 record. They have played tight games in each of their four Suburban Blue losses — 6-3 vs. Grain Valley, 24-21 vs. Winnetonka, 17-14 (OT) vs. Kearney and 17-0 vs. Smithville.
In fact, Grandview is currently No. 3 in the Class 4 District 7 standings with a 3-5 record.
“If we just come out and play the way we can, we’ll be fine,” Ruhnke said.
Platte County remained No. 3 in Class 4 District 8 behind still unbeaten Lincoln Prep (8-0) and Smithville (7-1), although the Pirates would leapfrog the Warriors based on a head-to-head win even if they finish the season higher in the standings. All eight teams in Class 4 District 8 have at least three wins, and seven are 4-4 or better. Incidentally, Winnetonka sits seventh and would be the first round opponent for Platte County if the season finished that way.
However, Lincoln Prep plays unbeaten Class 2-ranked Summit Christian this week, while Smithville faces Kearney (5-3) in a rivalry game. Incidentally, Kearney currently sits in sixth behind fourth-place Excelsior Springs (5-3) and fifth-place Lafayette (5-3), meaning if the seeds were to hold Kearney and Smithville would play back-to-back weeks with a quick rematch in the first round of the postseason.
Clearly, the seeding and the eight-team bracket won’t lack in storylines over the next month. Platte County will be looking to reach the district title game for a fifth straight year and a second playoff berth in three years but will undoubtedly face a difficult and unpredictable path.
“This district is wide open,” Utz said.