#3 Victoria Cruises in District Opener
VICTORIA-Thaddeus Wohler rushed for 91 yards and a touchdown and passed for two more scores as the Victoria Knights rolled to a 54-8 Homecoming victory over Central Plains Friday evening in their first game of district play.
The game began in grand fashion for the Knights who are ranked third in this week's KPreps 8-Man Division ll poll as Carson Werth returned the opening kickoff 70 yards for a touchdown and an early 6-0 lead after the failed conversion.
On their next drive, the Knights needed just one play to reach the end zone when Wohler scampered 64 yards for a score to make it 13-0 after Werth knocked in the extra point off the left upright. Werth's 30-yard run and the successful two-point conversion gave Victoria a 21-0 advantage after one quarter.
Victoria's lead swelled to 34-0 at halftime on a pair of second quarter touchdown passes from Wohler to Chase Schumacher and Seth Schwien of four and 12 yards respectively. Backup Quarterback Landon Schmidtberger increased the margin to 40-0 in the third stanza with a 12-yard touchdown pass on fourth down to Greg Huser.
Central Plains picked up their only score of the contest on a 63-yard touchdown pass from Quarterback Evan Stratmann to Blaine Hickel and the two-point conversion was good to cut the lead to 40-8. Victoria would answer a minute and 25 seconds later when Schmidtberger who appeared to be on the verge of being sacked, broke multiple tackles on his way to a 41-yard touchdown run to grow the margin to 48-8 on the heels of a two-point conversion.
Freshman Wyatt Schmidtberger finished off the scoring and the game with a seven-yard run with 6:41 left in the fourth quarter, seemingly taking half the Central Plains defense with him.
In addition to his kickoff return, Werth rushed 89 yards to key a Victoria ground attack that rolled up 315 out of the Knights' 415 yards of total offense. Wohler finished the night completing five of eight pass attempts for 88 yards and two touchdowns, all in the first half.
For the Oilers, Stratmann led the way offensively completing 13 of 18 pass attempts, including his first five of the game for 202 yards and the one score. Hickel was Central Plains' leading receiver with seven catches for 89 yards and his touchdown.
Victoria (4-0, 1-0) plays its next two games on the road starting next Friday, September 30 at Wilson. Central Plains (0-4, 0-1) returns home to face Sylvan-Lucas that same night in Claflin.