Ok, quick show of hands, how many of you, who were at the first meeting of the Paola Panthers and Louisburg Wildcats two weeks ago at Panther Stadium DID NOT think these two teams would be squaring off against one another for the Kansas Class 4A Sub-state Championship next weekend?
Anybody? That’s what I thought, and really, this is the way the season looked like it would play out clear back when two-a-days started in August.
A bit of the luster was taken off the first meeting on October 28 because the Panthers came into the game with a 6-2 record, after inexplicably dropping their first two games of the season to Baldwin and DeSoto. At that time, the talk around the county, and indeed around the eastern part of the state was “What’s wrong with Paola?”
Well, make no mistake, the Panthers showed, over the next nine weeks and ten games, that there was, thank you very much, nothing “wrong” with them at all. As I said in a game story back in week three “the reports of the Panthers demise had been greatly exaggerated” and Paola came back with a vengeance, winning nine of their next ten games and putting a shine back on the rematch that will be eagerly anticipated and talked about this week here in Miami County.
After all, it was the Panthers that needed to shine up their stature, the Wildcats have done everything they were asked to do, including go on the road to Silver Lake and end the Eagles 52 game regular season home winning streak with a 21-3 victory. Yes, the Wildcats have lived up to their billing, and at 11-0 they deserve to be ranked as highly as they are, and will enter the sub-state championship game with Paola as one of only two unbeaten teams remaining in the class this season, along with Buhler which dispatched of Topeka Hayden in another soggy game by a 21-0 score. Which, coincidentally was the same score Louisburg hung on DeSoto in the rain and muck of Wildcat Stadium.
But it is the Panthers, who will join Louisburg, Buhler and the winner of the Ulysses and Holton game this afternoon in Holton as the Kansas State Class 4A “Final Four”. It’s the Panthers who have erased the sting and stigma of losing their first two games, AT HOME, it a fashion which left those who watched scratching their heads in wonder. It’s the Panthers, who have, with that 0-2 start, had to PROVE they belonged, right up to final seconds of the game Friday night against Baldwin.
When the season started, I had a pretty good idea this was the way this season was going to play out. There were just too many signs which pointed to this match up.
Louisburg is wildly talented offensively and defensively, and after going through last season without the services of quarterback Kody Cook, were poised to take it to another level with his return. In addition, the Wildcats are a beast on the defensive side of the ball, Tyler Ewy is one of the best defensive players in the region, if not in the entire state.
The Panthers were loaded too, although it took a couple of weeks to find their identity, and those two lost weeks in September cost Paola some of the recognition through the rest of the state that they so richly deserved. The Panthers figured out in week three that they didn’t need to pass the ball to win football games. They figured out that a potent (and that might be an understatement) running attack with three and sometimes four players capable of breaking long runs every time they touch the ball was just as good as having a balanced passing and running game. And finally, the Panthers rediscovered how to play defense.
Let’s face it, big offenses are nice, but defense wins championships, and the defenses will be the star next Friday night when the Panthers and Wildcats meet to determine which team will play for the State’s ultimate Class 4A prize on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Salina.
Despite the score (and a Louisburg Herald headline proclaiming a “thrashing of the Panthers -- really Andy Brown, I like you a lot -- but “thrashed”?), the first meeting between these two teams was just about as even as you could get. That game boiled down to one team making the plays to win the game. It’s often cliché in sports, but the first meeting truly came down to four plays. Three outstanding offensive plays from Louisburg’s playmakers, Cook and Griffin, and an ill advised rugby style kick by the Panthers that was blocked it setting up one of those Wildcat touchdowns. Remove a pair of scrambling touchdown tosses, and a 50 yard Garrett Griffin touchdown run through just about every Panther defender on the field, and that game is far from a “thrashing”, no, it was anybody’s game and an outstanding high school football game between two very evenly matched, and really well coached teams.
I expect no less from the rematch next Friday. Who will win is anyone’s guess. I’m too close to both programs to make a prediction, but what I do know is this, I’m going to get to cover the state championship game regardless of the outcome on the field next Friday.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving will find me on the sideline of a deserving participant in the state championship game, and wether I’m wearing black and gold, or purple and white, it will be a fitting end to a fantastic season.
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