Horns gore Tigers; win 40-8 at Dundy County

A long trip, but a big win, for the Kimball High football team Friday night as they won 40-8 over the hosting Dundy County/Stratton football team that head quarters in Benkleman.

After a disappointing 22-21 loss the week prior to Cambridge with the winning two-point conversion coming with time expired, this was a huge win for coach Nick Kuxhausen and his team, showing they had the character to regroup and come back from the defeat. It was also the first varsity win for the new young coach and just the first of what we can expect to become many victories.

Every week junior running back Jonathon Withrow has played at a high calibre, and once again he rose to the occasion with perhaps his best performance yet.

On the night he wound up with 288 all purpose yards including 214 yards rushing on 26 carries averaging over 8 yards per carry with 2 touchdowns rushing, 23 yards receiving on 2 catches including 1 for yet another touchdown, and had 51 yards on 2 kick returns and 24 yards on a punt return. Throw in his 3 solo tackles and this was a night truly deserving of special recognition.

Jonathon was joined by several teammates who came forward in a true team effort for the win. Junior quarterback Colton Stull ran the offense with precision and appears to be near 100% in recovery of his ankle injury as he ran with authority, and passed the ball well connecting on 5 of 14 attempts for 66 yards and 2 touchdowns. He ended with 51 yards rushing on 6· carries. The offensive line play was near perfect according to Kuxhausen.

Kimball scored first on a 48 yard drive with Withrow and AJ Spicer with big key runs of 18 and 12 yards respectively. Withrow went in from 7 yards out with 7:53 on the clock and Enrique Cajero kicked the first of 4 PATs missing only once on the evening.

With 1:21 left first quarter Withrow broke for a 72 yard touchdown. This score was a result of a Stull interception at the Kimball 3 yard line to halt a scoring threat by the Tigers and Withrow's TD run climaxed the 97 yard, 7 play drive. Cajero's kick made it 14-0 after one period of play.

Along with his 4 PAT kicks on the night, Cajero also nailed his 2 field goal tries with his 33 yarder coming early in the second period after Kimball blocked a Tiger punt with Ben Sauter credited with the block and Justin Mohr making the recovery at the Tiger 19 yard line. A perfect pass hook up from Stull to Trent Rutledge went for a touchdown on the next snap but was called back on a penalty.

With a fourth and long yardage, Kuxhausen turned to Cajero and his talented toe for the 3 points with 9:27 to play second quarter putting Kimball up 17-0.

Kimball's next score came from another Cajero 22 yard field goal on a fourth and goal at the Tiger 5 yard line running the score to 20-0. Kimball would cross the goal line one more time before half with Stull throwing a touchdown pass to Withrow in the end zone to complete the 7 yard play with 5 seconds left before intermission. Cajero's kick made it 27-0.

The major negative on the night for Kimball was penalties and they cost Colton Stull on three scoring opportunities he was involved in.

In the third period he had a 21 yard TD run called back but he ended up with a touchdown pass to sophomore Angel Flores two plays later that went for 20 yards. The kick was wide and Kimball led 33-0. That was the margin after three periods of play although Stull had yet another 8 yard TD called back by penalty.

Dundy County/Stratton scored their touchdown with 6:12 remaining in the game with Kyle Rotherham going in from 6 yards out to complete a 78 yard drive. Rotherham also ran in the 2 point conversion.

Both schools played a lot of reserves in the closing minutes, Angel Flores scored the winner’s final TD on an 11 yard run with 4:04 left to play and Cajero kicked the PAT.

Kimball ended up with 363 yards rushing on 49 carries with Withrow high with his 214 yards on 26 attempts.

Stull had 51 on 6 rushes, Flores 19 on 5, Spicer 40 on 9, Jaden Withrow 39 on 2. The Tigers ended up with 28 rushes for 60 net yards and were 15 of 35 passing for 89 yards for 149 total yards.

Jake Reader led the tackle charts with 9 including 4 solo stops. Damien Rutledge had a big night with 5 solo stops and 8 total and like Reader had tackles for loss yardage. Dakota Flores had 5 tackles with 2 solo stops, Dakota Jefferson was in on 4 stops, Justin Mohr had 4, Jonathon Withrow 3 solo stops, Ethan Land, Trent Rutledge, Ben Sauter, and AJ Spicer were all in on 3 tackles. Trent Rutledge and Ben Sauter both recorded sacks, and Sauter and Reader both had blocked punts.

Coach Kuxhausen commenting on the win, “It was nice to finally win one. We opened up the play book and threw the ball more. Colton really did a nice job. Teams are starting to key on Jonathon and Colton’s foot is not bothering him much any more so he can give us anohter perspective with his running ability as well. Our offensive line is really playing well and at Benkleman they were near perfect with their assignments. On defense, Jake had another big night and Damien Rutledge had a big night as well. We used a little bit different scheme. Enrique is a great kicker for us and had a big night with 10 punts and 2 field goals.”

The Horns are at home this Friday and will face another Tiger team tomorrow night with long time and familiar foe, Mitchell coming to town. Coach Kuxhausen is quite familiar with the Mitchell club as that is where he played his high school ball.

“Mitchell will do some things we haven’t seen such as running out of a double wing formation. They have some real good key players who can hurt us. We need to eliminate our penalties as they can cost us a ball game.”

The Horns came out of the Dundy County/Stratton game with no injuries and are 100% healthy as of Monday evening. A reminder to fans, the Music Department will be holding a Soup Supper beginning at 5:30 p.m.