Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
These six Kimball High seniors played their final game on the home field this past Friday night and were honored at halftime along with their parents. Kneeling left to right are Derrick Soto and Angel Flores. Standing, left to right, are Tyler Magninie, Trent Rutledge, Creg Barker and Ethan Land.
Kimball's Brady Kilgore runs past a Hershey defender in Friday's game.
The visiting Hershey Panthers ran back the opening kickoff 82 yards for a quick go-ahead touchdown and never looked back in piling up a 54-7 win over the hosting Kimball High Longhorns this past Friday evening.
Mason Amweg, a fast and shifty 145 pound back for the Panthers got that early TD and with just over 2 minutes later, ran a reverse for another 32 yard touchdown with the PAT attempts both times failing. Following that score, Kimball came right back to close to 12-7 following a nice run back on the kickoff by Brady Kilgore to the Kimball 26 yard line. Tyler Magninie connected with Trent Rutledge on an 11 yard pass play, Logan Stahla ran for 17 more, and then Magninie went back to Rutledge for the 46 yard touchdown play with Rutledge making the good catch, then juking a defender and diving into the end zone with the clock showing 8:30 remaining in the first quarter. It would be the only time the Horns would cross the opposing goal line with the game going to the running clock by virtue of the 35 point lead in the second half play.
Hershey has good size up front along with their speedy and talented skill players and simply out-manned the injury plagued Longhorns, who had to dip down to their younger players to field a team. It was nice to see Logan Stahla back in uniform after sitting out several games with a knee injury but coach Nick Kuxhausen was without starter Kyle Spicer for the Hershey game due to health issues.
By half time Hershey was already up 28-7, expanded that lead to 48-7 after three quarters and the fourth period was pretty much a contest of back-up players by both teams. The winners also dominated the final stat sheet running 59 plays to 31 for Kimball and amassing 310 yards of offense to 123 for the Horns. The majority of the winners offense came on the ground as they piled up 274 yards rushing and went to the air only 4 times completing 2. Kimball had 54 yards rushing and 69 through the air completing 3 of 11 attempts for 1 touchdown and 3 interceptions. Magninie was under a heavy rush all night and had to scramble to find time to get his throws off. First downs were 18 to 5 in favor of Hershey.
Senior Trent Rutledge caught all 3 pass completions on the night for Kimball accounting for the 69 yards and the touchdown and also did a nice job punting. In the rushing department, freshman Jake Jenkins had 2 carries for 24 yards, Logan Stahla 4 for 20, freshman Brady Kilgore 9 for 10 net, freshman James Merryfield 1 for 7, and Magninie 4 for minus 7.
Kimball had 5 turnovers with 3 interceptions and 2 lost fumbles while Hershey had only 1 with a lost fumble with Rutledge making the recovery for the Horns. Rutledge also led the tackle chart for Kimball with 7, Creg Barker and Sam Tussing were charted with 5.5 each, Logan Stahla with 5, James Merryfield and Kole Bush 3.5 each, and Cody Kirby with 3 to finish among the leaders.
Kimball will close out the season this Friday at Bridgeport where once again they will go up against a large and talented Bulldog team that has had some big wins this season and are capable of putting big numbers on the score board. To the credit of the Longhorns and their coaching staff, they have shown no quit at any time in this difficult season. Game time at Bridgeport is back to the usual 7 p.m.
Score by quarter
Hershey 18 10 20 6 - 54
Kimball 7 0 0 0 - 7