Kearney got off the mat.
Humbled 72-0 by Millard South in the previous week, the Bearcats weren’t licking their wounds on the bus ride Friday to play Omaha North.
Their resolve showed in a 14-13 victory on the final play of the game. Treyton Norman caught an 11-yard pass from Zach Atkinson and Carter Symington kicked the walk-off extra point.
Kearney coach Brandon Cool said restoring confidence was the first concern in preparing for the Vikings.
“Last Monday, when we had our football meeting in the morning, we just said, ‘Hey, let’s get everybody on the same page. Let’s call the play, let’s run the play, let’s go win the play.’ It’s all about instilling confidence in these guys.”
Cool said his staff devised a “great” defensive game plan against Iowa commit Darion Jones at wide receiver and Jaron Cannon at running back.
Kearney overcame its 132 yards on offense — before his touchdown, Atchison was 5 of 19 for 15 yards and a first-play pick-six. Its defense held Cannon to 125 yards with one touchdown and had three takeaways. John Florell was in on a team-high 13 tackles.
“We hung our hat on our defense. We thought we did a pretty good job defensively,” Cool said. “And then at halftime, we’re down by a score, and all you got to do is you got to come back and win the second half. Give our offense a shot to get an opportunity to get a touchdown at the end.
“Our kids were resilient, and I just thought they did a great job of staying together. We have a good nucleus of kids that do a great job of bonding together, playing for one another and pulling for each other.”
Kearney started the season with three returning lettermen. Hardly uncommon for Cool’s program, which emphasizes the journey, playing seniors who have come from one of the district’s two middle schools.
“We just feel like that’s where we get an opportunity to get those guys involved with football, when they start to love the game of football, and if we can keep them around once they get into sophomore, junior stage, being a multisport athlete, finding some weight-room time, playing extra sports, being involved with a lot of school activities. We just feel we have a little bit of an advantage,” Cool said. “We don’t bring up kids as early as maybe some other teams or other programs do.
“We start with having a lot of competition within our program, starting about their sophomore year. Kids mature at a different level. A kid that might have been on the B team freshman football team, we’ve had a lot of those kids that have played for us or even started for us at the varsity level when they become seniors.
“Football is a maturity sport. You got to make sure you keep your numbers up, and so we try to develop that at the lower level and continue to bring our numbers up. We should be senior-heavy every year. I think our kids enjoy the expectations, and they’re going to play hard and they’re going to compete like crazy. That’s our model for many, many years, and we believe in the program development, and that’s what’s going to keep the flow.”
Rankings comments
Top 10: Kearney’s insertion at No. 5 moves everybody in last week’s list — starting with Omaha North — down a notch. It bumps out Waverly, which had been one of the three Class B teams that entered last week. But Waverly won’t be forgotten in future considerations.
Class A: Besides Kearney’s win, the jolter from last week was Lincoln Southeast’s 36-33 loss at Norfolk (3-1). The Knights exit. Bellevue West stays in at 1-3 after losing 29-21 to No. 2 Omaha Westside.
Class B: Seward shrank the list of unbeatens to three by beating visiting Scottsbluff 14-6. The Bluejays rise to eighth and Scottsbluff falls to 10th. The top six teams hail from the Eastern Midlands Conference.
Class C-1: One of the most momentous wins in program history could be its 28-21 win over Pierce, which moves the Pioneers to seventh and drops the Bluejays from fifth to ninth.
Class C-2: A rare reshuffling of teams not caused by a loss is Wahoo Neumann and Norfolk Catholic moving past Kearney Catholic. The Stars have struggled the past two weeks, beating winless Hastings St. Cecilia 14-7 and C-1 Minden (now 1-3) 14-13.
Eight Man-1: Thayer Central beat Sutton 20-0 in a matchup of undefeateds, with the Titans taking Sutton’s No. 8 spot and the Mustangs falling to No. 10. Crofton stays No. 6 despite a 30-18 loss to No. 5 Bloomfield. Three games Friday night match northeast teams that have been ranked this month.
Eight Man-2: No. 2 Central Valley’s 62-8 win over then-No. 9 Anselmo-Merna costs the Coyotes their spot, now taken by undefeated Cambridge at No. 10.
Six Man: Red Cloud is No. 1, perhaps for the first time in program history.
Top games Friday
Class A: Omaha Central at Omaha Westside, Omaha Creighton Prep vs. Papillion-La Vista (at PLV Stadium), Kearney at Lincoln East, Papillion-La Vista South at Norfolk
Class B: Bennington at Gretna, Gering at McCook, Gretna East at Plattsmouth, Lincoln Pius X at Norris
Class C-1: Aurora at Grand Island Northwest, Omaha Gross at Boys Town, Fort Calhoun at Elkhorn Mount Michael, Gothenburg at Sidney
Class C-2: Fremont Bergan at Yutan, Raymond Central vs. Lincoln Lutheran (at Nebraska Wesleyan), West Point-Beemer at Hartington Cedar Catholic
Eight Man-1: Sandy Creek at Thayer Central, Bloomfield at Wausa/Osmond, Hartington-Newcastle at Crofton, McCool Junction at Mead, East Butler at Shelby-Rising City, Plainview at Summerland
Eight Man-2: Burwell at Central Valley, Cambridge at Loomis, Lawrence-Nelson at Deshler, Johnson-Brock at Elmwood-Murdock
Six Man: Leyton at Potter-Dix, Red Cloud at Meridian, Wallace at Southwest
stu.pospisil@owh.com, twitter.com/stuOWH
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Stu Pospisil
Reporter – High school sports
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