Football beats Washburn Rural in weather-shortened game

Jacob Clanton, Sports Editor

In football, there is a strategy known as “icing the kicker”. This is when a team calls a timeout as the other team’s kicker is getting set to try a field goal. Normally, only the teams ice the kicker. Friday night though, Mother Nature decided to join in.

Officials were forced to delay the game with 1:14 remaining in the third quarter due to lightning in the area. This came right after an MHS touchdown, but before the extra point was attempted.

Even with weather delays of an hour and 21 minutes and an hour and 26 minutes, Manhattan High (2-0) beat Washburn Rural (1-1) 28-6, in a shortened game. The game was called with 6:41 remaining in the game.

During the delays, the Indians were able to work on their plan of attack and attempt to keep focus.

“We were able to watch film,” senior quarterback Ian Trapp said. “We were able to think about schemes we could run against them. It’s kind of hard to keep your focus during a break that long. When we needed to go back out there, we got our focus back.”

Even with the unexpected rain and wind, Manhattan didn’t feel the need to change their gameplan.

“We only had to worry about the wind being against us for a minute or two [in the third quarter],” Trapp said, “so that really wasn’t that big of a deal. Then the fourth quarter came, and we had the wind at our backs, and we were still going to be able to pass out of that.”

Trapp went 6-10 with 106 yards passing, and rushed for 84 yards and a touchdown. Senior running back Iverson Robb added 131 yards and three touchdowns of his own on the ground. Trapp said that would be helpful to the team in the future.

“It shows that we’re more versatile,” Trapp said. “It shows that a lot of different people can make a lot of different plays. If I have an off night, [Robb] can pick it up, and they can’t really scout against that.”

The Indians were also effective defensively, holding Washburn Rural to 152 yards offensively and only six points. Senior linebacker Zephry Killham came away with one of the plays of the game, blocking Rural’s field goal attempt in the third quarter.

However, the Junior Blues seemed to gain many more yards than that due to penalties. Manhattan picked up seven penalties for 69 yards. Trapp didn’t feel like that was too big of an issue.

“Going in, we maybe kind of predicted that we might have some trouble with Washburn Rural having their home referee staff there,” Trapp said. “It’s a lot of little things that we don’t get called in games that they were calling, and we kind of adjusted and picked it up, and kind of cleaned it up later in the game.”

Manhattan stays on the road this week with a game at Highland Park. The team’s biggest struggle is sustaining their drive.

“We just need to keep the same mentality,” Trapp said. “We don’t need to let up from a different opponent who maybe isn’t as high quality as some of the other teams we’ve faced. We need to get more disciplined as we have harder opponents coming up in the schedule.”