Vikings, Lancers battle for playoff spot
By Brock Sisney

bsisney@morningsun.net

The Northeast Vikings and
the Southeast Lancers are both
aware of the stakes at hand
during their Week 8 game.
“For us, we play at home,
we play a rival and it’s Senior
Night,” Northeast head coach
Mark Manriquez said. “That
makes it fun. The stakes are
high. That’s what football is
all about. I told them that for
as miserable as the season has
been, everything that we have
been through, we still have an
opportunity to achieve one of
our goals and that’s to play for
something worth playing for, a
playoff spot.”
“The winner gets to say they
made the playoffs,” Southeast
assistant Thomas Sharbutt
said. “They get to go on and
play a more meaningful game,
not that a consolation game
is not meaningful. We were in
that boat last year where our
ninth game is the consolation
game. It’s something to build on
for the next year.”
Northeast (1-6) and Southeast
(0-7) are vying for the fourth
and final spot from Class 1A
District 1 in the state playoffs.
The winner draws the District
2 champion Olpe and the loser
gets a consolation game in Week
9 against either Pleasanton (4-3)
or Northern Heights (0-7), who
also play each other Friday.
The Vikings and the Lancers start their clash at 7 p.m.
Friday at Samuel J. Nicoletti
Field in Arma.
“We couldn’t account for all
the injured players, the two
underclassmen that left the
team, and so we’ve had a lot
of adversity,” Manriquez said.
“We’re getting people back
healthy. Tayven (Willard), one
of our safeties and receivers, is
back. Brodie (Doubledee), one
of our linemen, is back at full
strength. It gives us a little bit
of depth, and it allows us to do
some things we couldn’t the last
two weeks both from an offensive and defensive standpoint.
We’re excited about that.”
“We’re pretty healthy,”
Sharbutt said. “We don’t have
anybody that is too banged up
from injury. This late in the
season, sometimes it’s a war of
attrition when you don’t have a
lot of kids out like some of the
schools in the area. We should
have a full squad, good days of
practice and hopefully, we’re
ready to play.”
Northeast achieved a 42-0
win last Friday against winless
Northern Heights.
“Our approach to the game
was a little bit different,” Manriquez said. “They had film
on us running our I and our
spread, so we ended up putting
in a Wildcat (formation) and
eight different plays. We ran
our regular offense as well in
between. They prepared for the
I and the spread and they just
couldn’t adjust to the Wildcat,
which was to our advantage.”
Senior running back and
linebacker Braden Young again
excelled on both sides of the
ball for the Vikings, rushing
for 237 yards and two TDs and
recording 23 tackles (15 solo, 8
assist) with eight of them for
loss and one forced fumble.
Young’s 118 total tackles
make him the unofficial Kansas high school leading tackler
and rank him 61st nationally
among players who have their
stats entered on MaxPreps.
Fellow senior running back
Tayshawn Gaynor had 161
yards and three TDs last week.
He also threw a 38-yard TD pass
to senior quarterback Indica
Holloway.
Southeast took a 14-12 defeat
last Friday against District 1
and Three Rivers League rival
Uniontown.
“We had some plays that we
didn’t quite execute when we
could have that might have given
us an edge there,” Sharbutt said.
“Two-point conversions are big
if you don’t get them. We had a
nice kick return that was called

back on a hold. Just execution when it came down to
it.
“It’s a learning experience for the players.
They were upset after the
game, and we like to see
that emotion from them
because they care and
they want to win. Just
talking with them about
working on the little
things and how executing
a play here and there can
make a difference.”
Last week, junior running back Aden Smith had
51 yards and one TD on 16
carries and caught four
passes for 31 yards. Senior
running back Dalton Davis
added 46 yards and the
other TD on 10 carries and
caught four passes for 41
yards. Junior quarterback
Andrew Phillips threw for
72 yards on 8-for-19 passing.
Sophomore lineman
Cayne Windsor made
eight tackles and linebacker Davis came
through with seven tackles and two interceptions.