Week 2 Football Preview-Live Streaming Links

Woodward (1-0, 0-0) at Garden City (0-1, 0-0); 7 p.m. kickoff (6:30 pm pregame on 99.9 FM KWKR with Mike Pilosof and Ross Miller)

Live Audio Streaming: https://www.westernkansasnews.com/kbuf/

When members of this year’s Buffalo squad walk across the stage to get their diplomas, September 7, 2012 will not be a day they to want to reminisce about.

Despite a 17-7 win at Boomer Stadium, Garden City produced one of their worst offensive outings of the Brian Hill era.

“Last year was just a sloppy game-especially for me,” Senior quarterback Greyson Tempel said after practice on Thursday. “But I think we’ll be fine this time around. We know the offense we’re running now, and we’ve got a lot more experience.”

Tempel has plenty of starts under his belt now (10) compared to the Woodward game last year (1). And the numbers definitely showed: He completed just 12-of-25 passes for 62 yards against the Boomers, and threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

“Let’s put it this way, I’m hoping for a much better outing on offense this year from myself,” Tempel said.

So is the running game, which totaled just 103 yards on the ground (61 of those belonged to Tempel).

As average as the offense was that night, the defense was stellar-holding the lifeless Boomers to just 20 total yards, including -28 on the ground.

Last week, Dominic Dingle’s defense allowed the most yards out of any team in the Western Athletic Conference. But those numbers are a bit deceiving. The unit was solid-forcing three turnovers (several dropped interceptions) and limiting the Spartans big plays. Bixby ran 95 plays and possessed the ball for 31:59. They averaged 5.9 yards per play.

The star against Bixby was easily free safety Dozie Ekweairiri, who recorded a game and a conference best 17 tackles. He was also solid on the back end.

As for this week-the senior should remember the Boomers quite well; after all he was inserted into the game last year after Emilio Parr broke his ankle.

But regardless of what happened 12 months ago, Hill’s bunch will set their eyes on a totally different Woodward team in 2013.

Entering his third season at the helm, Boomers Coach Darris Servis will undoubtedly be bringing his most talented group to Buffalo Stadium.

“We’ve got a good group of seniors here this year,” Servis said. “It’s the same talented guys we had as sophomores-just two years older.”

So how does Servis compare this team to his first two:

“It’s best group of leaders I’ve ever been around,” he said. “It’s their (the players) program; I just sort of facilitate things.”

Whoever has taken charge in 2013-the rest of the bunch apparently is on board. The proof: A 40-point blowout win at El Reno on opening night-the most lopsided week-one victory since 1996. It might only be one game, but the rest of the class has taken notice.

For the first time in recent memory-Woodward cracked the top-ten rankings; a feat that seemed unthinkable when the Boomers began their coaching search, following the resignation of Justin Jones in the Spring of 2010. 36 months later, Athletic Director Andy Newby’s hire is paying huge dividends. And the numbers back it up.

In his first season at the helm, Servis registered a top-ten defense, and led the black and gold to their first playoff win since 1996; an upset of No. 4 Douglass in the opening-round of the 4A playoffs.

Now add a senior quarterback in Kale Hixon, who’s a three-year starter (the first quarterback playing for the Boomers with multiple years of starting under his belt since Casey Covalt in 2010), into the mix, and it seems like things could get very interesting in 4A-1.

Hixon transferred to Woodward from Perry after he started for his father Craig, who’s now a Boomer assistant. In fact, dad tabbed son the starter midway through his freshman campaign, and the younger Hixon has been throwing darts ever since.

As for weapons, he has the experience of 6-5 Senior Kaleb Roach on the perimeter, who caught 25 passes for 380 yards and three touchdowns a season ago.

The defense is anchored by senior Kyler Ferguson, who, with another 100 tackle season, could make a strong push at catching former Boomer Mason Semmel for second in career tackles. You could probably even compare Ferguson to another former member of the black and gold Chad Meade, who’s 404 career stops remains at the top of the program.

Servis should be able to compare-after all he coached Meade during the Boomers run to the 94 state championship game.

Series Notes: Garden City leads all-time series 6-3 and have won three straight. Woodward’s last win came back in 2001-a 22-12 victory at Boomer Stadium.

Colby Eagles (0-1) at Scott City Beavers (1-0); 7:30 p.m. kickoff (7:00 p.m. pregame on 94.1 Mix FM with Adam Kadavy)

Live Audio Streaming: https://www.westernkansasnews.com/mix94/

Scott City hosts Colby at Darner Field for the first time since 2010, when they defeated the Eagles 42-14.

The Beavers picked up from where they left off last season, with a 40-13 dismantling of the Abilene Cowboys last Friday to kick off the 2013 season. Trey O’Neil threw for 212 yards and four touchdowns through over a half of football, two each to receivers Brayden Strine and Chis Pounds. Pounds caught his third scoring pass from Brett Meyer late in the third quarter.

The Beaver defense held the Cowboys out of the end zone through the first three quarters.

Colby was shutout at home against Class 2-1A power Oakley 26-0 last Friday night. The Eagles are still trying to get comfortable in their new spread formation offense they introduced in week one.

Series Notes: Scott City has won the last nine meetings in the series, dating back to 2000. The Beavers and Eagles did not play from 2006-2009. In fact, the last time Colby won over Scott City was in 1999, with a 14-7 victory.

Holcomb (1-0) at Hugoton (0-1); 7:30 p.m. kickoff (7 p.m. pregame on AM 1030 KBUF with Kirk Hutchinson and Jacob Rungardt)

Live Audio Streaming: https://www.westernkansasnews.com/mix94/

Coming off a 21-20 win over the reigning 2A-1A state champions in their season opener, the Holcomb Longhorns take to the road again Friday against Great-West conference foe, the Hugoton Eagles.

While the Longhorns were holding off the Meade Buffaloes in a back-and-forth tussle, the Eagles fell to the Goodland Cowboys 43-24 in their league opener, despite leading 16 – 8 at halftime.

Holcomb’s attack in the first game featured the passing and running of first year quarterback, Heath Tucker, who threw for 161 yards and 1 touchdown, while rushing for two more TDs.

Blake Richmeier led a stubborn Longhorn defense with 16 tackles and that “D” will be tested this week by the Eagles’ Ross Davis, who rushed for 126 yards in the loss to Goodland, as Hugoton rolled up 299 yards rushing as a team.

Can Holcomb’s defense lead the way again? Will the Longhorn passing attack rule the air again? Can the rushing attack equal the output of the passing game? If the answers to those questions are “Yes,” then the Longhorns could come home with a 2 – 0 record.