Kimball falls, 38-6, in battle of Longhorns

Chase County came to Kimball Friday night and took home a 38-6 victory in the football battle between the two Longhorn teams. Kimball scored first, but it was all Chase County from that point on.

On a cloudy, but calm football night that was delayed 30 minutes due to lightning and some brief rain, Chase County sent the opening kickoff out of bounds allowing the local Horns to start on their 38 yard line. The Big Red picked up a pair of first downs but then stalled and had to punt. Chase County started on its own 20 after the Enrique Cajero punt sailed into the end zone, and on their first snap of the football, Jaden Withrow intercepted a pass and took it to the Chase County 17-yard line. Colton Stull hit Trent Rutledge with a 7-yard pass, AJ Spicer ran for 5 yards and a first down and then Jon Withrow broke through for a 5-yard touchdown over his own left side with the clock showing 9:03 left in the opening period and Kimball up 6-0.

Kimball battled hard and following a 79-yard drive by Chase County, and with a fourth and 1 at the Kimball goal line, the Horns stopped the visitors with Trent Rutledge and Cody Kirby leading the charge, and took over at their own 1-yard line. Chase County tackled Jon Withrow in the end zone for a safety to cut the lead to 6-2 with 4:05 left in the first period and that left Kimball on top at the end of the quarter but Chase County struck early in the second period on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Kelton Fisher to Bryson Fisher and Jeffrey Dickey ran in the PAT to give the Imperial club a 10-6 lead with 10:38 left in the second period.

Kimball came close to scoring again before halftime after Trent Rutledge recovered an opponent's fumble and coach Nick Kuxhausen reverted to a bit of trickery with an end-around pass play with Tyler Magninie throwing complete to Michael Ferguson for a 34-yard gain and a first down at the Chase County 28. On fourth down, Cajero attempted a 41-yard field goal that just missed. Chase County would strike again before intermission on a 20-yard pass play from Fisher to Destyn Miller and Dickey ran in the PAT to give the visitors an 18-6 lead as they went to the locker room at halftime.

The second half starts with Ben Sauter recovering an onside kick, but Kimball's drive stalled deep in Chase County territory as they gave up the football on a fumble and Chase County went to the air to set up the next touchdown on a 47-yard pass from Fisher to Isaac Sorensen and on the next play Dickey took it in from 9 yards out to extend the margin to 24-6 when the PAT failed.

In the fourth quarter Chase County scored on a quarterback keeper over the right side and converted the PAT on a pass play to go up 32-6 with 9:38 left. With 5 seconds showing on the game clock, Chase County elected to gamble for one more score rather than take a knee or let the time run out, and they got 6 more points on a 77-yard pass play from Destyn Miller to Hunter Dillon. Final....38-6!

The two teams were pretty equal in number of plays ran with Kimball charted with 62 and Chase County 61, but the winners piled up 429 yards of offense to Kimball's 197. The visitors controlled the game with their big and physical running backs but were also 9 of 12 passing for 187 yards while Kimball was 9 of 22 passing for 78 yards. On the ground, the winners rushed 49 times for 242 yards with Kimball with 40 carries for 119 yards. Both teams had 3 penalties and were equal in turnovers. Chase County was led by Jeffrey Dickey with 28 carries for 164 yards and 2 touchdowns. Jonathon Withrow led Kimball with 21 carries for 86 yards and 1 touchdown. Jaden Withrow had 6 carries for 50 yards, and AJ Spicer 6 for 23 yards.

Michael Ferguson was Kimball's top receiver with 3 catches for 42 yards, Trent Rutledge had 2 for 16, Jaden Withrow, Ethan Land, Jon Withrow, and Tyler Magninie all 1 each.

Ferguson was at the top of the tackle chart with 7 solo stops and 5 assists. Jaden Withrow had 6 and 6, Jon Withrow 5 and 3, Justin Mohr 3 and 3, Ethan Land 3 and 2, Colton stull 3 and 2, Angel Flores and AJ Spicer both 2 and 3, Ben Sauter 1 and 4, Tyler Magninie 2 and 1, Trent Rutledge was in on 3.

Coach Kuxhausen said, "It was a case of Chase County being more physical than us. They had big backs and we played hard but did not get the job done tackling them." Chase County is now 3-1 with a lone loss of 14-12 the week prior to coming to Kimball to C-l Cozad by a score of 14-12. Cozad is ranked #3 in the state C-l rankings. Kuxhausen said they may be the most physical team Kimball will face.

Kimball goes on the road this Friday to Bayard and this may be a good thing as they are 2-0 on the road and 0-2 at home. Game time is 7 p.m. Kimball was without Damien Rutledge on Friday as he sat out with a caste of mononucleosis. His status at the time of this writing was uncertain for this Friday.

Score by quarter

Kimball 6 0 0 0 - 6

Chase Co. 2 16 6 14 - 38