Friday night brights: Pass-and-run threat

Pass-and-run threatTwo years ago, Basehor-Linwood coach Steve Hopkins had a vision after watching West Virginia’s quarterback — Pat White, at the time — control the Mountaineers’ offense by throwing the football and running.

He thought his best athlete, Brandon Lettke, could do the same thing in a spread offense. On Friday night against Santa Fe Trail, Hopkins’ vision became a reality.

In Basehor-Linwood’s 56-6 victory, Lettke led the Bobcats with six touchdowns — three passing, two running and an 84-yard punt return for a touchdown.

Lettke finished the night with 438 total yards.

“That’s more than pretty,” Hopkins said of his quarterback. “We had a lot of short fields, and Brandon did a great job leading the offense.”

Back when Hopkins hatched his idea, Lettke was starting for the varsity at the age of 14. Hopkins remembers when Lettke sometimes couldn’t make the right decision about whether to pass the football or run it. Now, having been in the system for a third year, Lettke made all the right decisions in Friday’s win, Hopkins said.

“I thought his decision-making was great,” Hopkins said. “There were about four times when we had a pass play called, and he just ran for large gains. Now, he’s got this offense down.”

Decisions, decisionsMike Thomas stood on the sideline, his team trailing by five points. With a little more than 2 minutes left in the game, Thomas, the first-year coach at St. Thomas Aquinas, could either punt the ball back to North Kansas City or gamble on fourth down.

Thomas decided to punt and pin the Hornets in their own territory — a decision that left some Aquinas backers concerned. That’s because the scoreboard had stopped working earlier in the game, leaving fans to wonder: Why punt when you don’t know how much time is left?

Thomas stayed calm, and his plan worked. The Saints grabbed a 22-19 victory over North Kansas City on Friday night with 7 seconds to spare. The Saints stopped the Hornets after Thomas’ decision, giving Aquinas the football with less than 1:30 left.

“There were a lot of fans and parents screaming, ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ ” Thomas said.

After being benched earlier in the game, quarterback Richard Bavila led Aquinas down to North Kansas City’s 2. Then came another decision for Thomas: What play to call on fourth and goal?

“We were confident with the play we called,” Thomas said. “The play had worked before, so I knew we could get it done.”

The play called for Bavila to roll out, giving him the option to either throw the football into the end zone or run it himself. Bavila chose to run and scored the touchdown, allowing Aquinas to outscore the Hornets 15-12 in the final quarter.

“The kids just didn’t give up,” Thomas said. “They just came together to get the job done.”

Northmen making stridesOak Park coach Keith Ross knows his football team is young. And like many coaches, Ross is looking for progress from game to game. Friday night against Belton, Ross saw his first sign of the Northmen’s improvement.

With about 2:30 left in the game, Belton’s Glendal Whitney scored on a 38-yard run and pulled the Pirates within one point. Then, after Oak Park was penalized for an illegal substitution, Belton called a timeout to try to win the game on a two-point conversion.

Ross’ defense needed to make a stop. Whitney had already rushed for a game-high 229 yards. Fortunately for Ross, his Northmen stopped Whitney short of the goal line to preserve a 14-13 win.

“I told our guys, basically, ‘You have to stop them,’ and that this is the game,” Ross said.

Even though Oak Park gave up big numbers to Whitney, Ross was proud his team earned its first win of the season. After stopping the two-point conversion, Oak Park recovered Belton’s on-side kick and ran out the clock.

“The defense did a good job when we needed it,” Ross said. “You just hope this is a confidence builder for the rest of the season.”

Comments - leave comment

• avgcat85 says:

  A couple of comments: #1 - From Basehor-Linwood - You misspelled the quarterbacks name. It is Leppke, not Lettke. #2 The box score shows: BAL: TD B Lettke 29 pass from B Lettke (B Courtney kick) BAL: TD B Lettke 20 pass from B Lettke (B Courtney kick) Leppke threw the passes. Somebody else caught them. #3 - I saw that Sanders had 220 yard rushing. It seems odd that he would have that many yards and yet the offense had only one touchdown. Was the kick-off return yardage included? I know the punt return for Leppke from Basehor-Linwood was not included in his rushing yardage. Just curious. Is there another category for all-purpose yardage? I know Leppke had a total of 438. (passing, rushing and special teams).

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