Basketball
Fort Osage rides Krysa to victory over Belton
| Friday September 7, 2007 7:00 PM | |||||
| Team (Record) | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Total |
| Fort Osage (10 - 2) | 6 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 23 |
| Belton (9 - 4) | 7 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 14 |
“Everybody gets tired,” Krysa said afterward. “But we’ve been doing a lot of conditioning in practice. The coaches do a great job getting us ready.”
Perhaps that’s why Krysa looked as fresh rushing for the 36th time as he did his first. In fact, his 36th and final carry gained 39 yards, his longest pickup of the night, and iced the game by putting the ball at the Belton 2, where the Indians then ran out the clock on a 23-14 victory at Joe Maurer Memorial Stadium.
Those 36 carries netted Krysa a game-high 247 yards. He scored one touchdown but saw two others called back by Fort Osage penalties.
“I probably gave (Krysa) the ball too many times,” said Fort Osage coach Ryan Schartz. “But in a game like this, I’m going to give him the rock.”
The win improved Fort Osage to 2-0 and put the Indians a leg up on Belton in the Suburban Conference Mid Six race. The Pirates fell to 1-1.
Fort Osage let its intentions be known on its first possession. The Indians handed the ball to Krysa, a junior, six times for 48 yards. The rest of the yardage came on quarterback Bobby Wagener’s 38-yard touchdown pass to Parker Jones. In all, Fort Osage drove 68 yards in 11 plays, chewing up much of the first quarter.
Belton, meanwhile, struggled on its early drives. But the Pirates received a break when Fort Osage tried and failed on a fake punt, giving them the ball at the Indians’ 42. Six plays later — and aided by a Fort Osage unsportsmanlike conduct penalty — Zach Rasmussen hit Chad Henderson from 19 yards out and put the Pirates on the scoreboard. Brad Gourley’s extra-point kick gave the Pirates a 7-6 lead.
That’s how the score remained until 39 seconds left in the half. Belton gave the Indians good field position by going for it on fourth down. The Indians took over at their 33, but three carries by Krysa, totaling 45 yards, put them within field-goal range for kicker Vince Langkamp, who hit a 33-yard field goal as time expired.
“That was huge for us,” Schartz said. “We were making mistakes, penalty after penalty. That gave us huge momentum at the end of the half.
“The funny thing is, we didn’t even know we’d have Langkamp until earlier today. The only reason we got him is his soccer game got canceled because the field was too wet.”
The Indians opened the lead to 16-7 on a 1-yard run by Wagener midway through the fourth quarter, but Belton came right back with the best drive of the night, a 14-play, 80-yard drive capped by Ben Pritchett’s 1-yard plunge.
But the Indians — aided greatly by 35 yards in penalties by the Pirates —answered on their next possession, making the Pirates’ hopes of a comeback slim.
Pritchett led Belton with 102 yards in 27 carries.
submitted by Bob Luder - 2007-09-08 10:15:00
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