Giant killers

In the last week, both of the 3A western giants have fallen. For the first time since 2005, the state championship game will be played without Conway Springs or Garden Plain.

In the past eight years, the 3A championship has been won by either Conway or Garden Plain six times. Since 2000, one of the two powerhouses has represented the west in the championship game every year except for 2005, when Southeast of Saline won the title, and in 2000 when Wichita Collegiate won the title.

You can now add 2009 to the small list of years in this decade that won’t feature Conway or Garden Plain playing on Thanksgiving weekend.

It started with maybe the best game of the first round—in any class—on paper at least, between Wichita Collegiate and Garden Plain.

Garden Plain was looking to a rematch with the Cardinals after a controversial loss to Conway Springs in districts.

The Spartans from Collegiate, led by quarterback Blake Jablonski and a host of 6-foot-plus receivers, have put up eye-popping offensive numbers on a weekly basis.

But while Collegiate’s offense put a strain on scoreboards all year long, it has done so with a certain amount of disbelief based on the Spartans’ weak MCAA schedule.

The true test of Collegiate’s legitimacy had to wait until the Spartans went up against the big boys in the playoffs.

Jablonski’s 248 yards and six touchdowns overwhelmed the Owls in a 51-20 blowout. Receiver Brett LeMaster finished the game with an unreal 146 yards on nine catches.

Really. Garden Plain lost a game by 31 points.

Anyone who may have doubted Collegiate based on soft MCAA opponents instantly needs to rethink things. Collegiate is for real.

While Garden Plain was getting pounded, Conway Springs was busy eliminating Douglass from the playoffs with a 54-13 win, setting up a Saturday game against 10-0 Hutchinson Trinity.

Hutch Trinity, like Collegiate, has a high powered passing attack, led by quarterback Derek Racette.

The Celtics didn’t handle the No. 1 team in the state the way Collegiate took out Garden Plain, but Trinity did come away with a 33-28 victory, to completely turn the western half of the 3A bracket upside down.

Racette threw for 341 of Trinity’s 473 yards of total offense, and had four touchdown passes, including a 77-yard Hail Mary to Michael Mesh on fourth-and-28 for the go-ahead touchdown with a minute left.

The Trinity win completed what has become an extreme rarity in this decade—a non-CPL western champion.

Could this be the beginning of a new passing era in 3A football?

For years, the Conway Springs single-wing offense has been the standard of excellence in 3A. Trying to guess whether the next play is going to be a run or a pass is a breeze. Conway is running the ball. However, trying to figure out who is going to get the ball has been an absolute nightmare for defense coordinators, defenses, photographers, videographers, spectators and play-by-play personalities for a very long time.

There have been a ton of imitators of the Conway single wing. But no one has been able to run it like the Cardinals.

Garden Plain also plays a physically dominating style of football. Unlike Conway, there is not a lot of sneakiness in the Owls’ running game. The Owls line it up, hand it to the back and pound you. Garden Plain is maybe the only team in the state that can line up against Conway and get into a battle of running games.

It may seem like a no brainer to run against Conway and Garden Plain to keep the dominate offenses off the field. However, the amount of Division I defensive talent to come out of both of these schools has a way of taking those plans and trashing them. Both of these schools can, and will, hit harder than the opponent.

But in 2009, Collegiate and Hutch Trinity may have laid down a new blueprint to beating these teams—using the pass.

Of course, passing offenses require a ton of athletic talent, from the quarterback, to the receivers and all the way down to running backs who are willing and able to pick up blitzes in pass protection. Deciding to go with a passing attack is easier said than done.

Both Collegiate and Hutch Trinity have the talent to run these offenses, and run them well.

Physical running games have been a staple of the western football style for as long as there has been football in Kansas. But in 2009, the game to decide the western half of the bracket could be a passing fest between the Celtics and the Spartans.

Could this be the future of 3A football, or will the dominant passing attacks of 2009 be a one-time deal?