Blue Springs standout defender Gus Toca led a quick Missouri defense that spent much of the evening in the Kansas backfield during a 10-7 win Thursday.
Missouri's defense swarms a Kansas ballcarrier during Thursday's 10-7 win.
Photo by Dean Backes
For much of Thursday’s Mo-Kan Metro Classic All-Star Football Game, Missouri’s defense demonstrated that it had plenty of quickness in posting a shutout through three-and-a-half quarters in a 10-7 win over the Kansas All-Stars.
Missouri’s defense, playing in front of a Show-Me crowd at Blue Springs South’s Larry Stewart Memorial Stadium, spent the better part of the game in the Kansas backfield disrupting just about everything the Sunflower State team had to throw at them.
Led by former Blue Springs standout lineman Gus Toca, Missouri’s MVP, the Show-Me ‘D’ gave Kansas quarterbacks and running backs all they could handle in just getting back to the line of scrimmage.
“Everybody up front on this defense is really quick off the ball,” Toca said. “I think we surprised them with our quickness. They weren’t ready for us. They had never seen anything like us.”
Speed on the Kansas side, however, threatened to disrupt Missouri’s first win in the series since 2006.
With his team trailing 10-0 midway through the fourth quarter, former Bonner Springs standout receiver Jeremy Walker found a crease in the left side of the Missouri line and raced 80 yards down the sideline for Kansas’ first points, pulling the Sunflower state to within one score of a tie or a win.
The Missouri defense, however, wouldn’t be shaken. All of that work, that dominance, wouldn’t be wasted.
“That just pumped us up even more,” Toca said following the long run that swung momentum momentarily. “We wanted that shutout pretty bad, so that fired us up even more.
“We knew we were alright. We just kept telling each other no mistakes. Everybody had to get to their positions and stay focused.”
The Show-Me defense took the field again with 3:23 remaining in the contest with Kansas bottled up at its own 20-yard line for the sixth time in the game.
Kansas, which still leads the series 10-7, opted to go with the running game in trying to win its third straight contest in the classic that pits the top Missouri prep football players in the Kansas City Metro area against their counterparts from the Kansas side of State Line Road.
The Sunflower all-stars threw one pass, which went for 18 yards, on its final possession and found itself just short of midfield as time expired.
While Missouri’s defenders looked about as dominant as any defense has in the 17-year history of the all-star game, Kansas’ defense was tough to dent as well. Two big plays keyed Missouri’s scoring drives.
Following Kansas’ first of three fumbles, former Raytown South receiver Ronnell Garner hauled in Kearney quarterback Conrad Schottel’s bootleg pass for a 54-yard gain to the Kansas 10-yard line.
Three plays later the duo hooked up again for an 11-yard gain to the Kansas 1 on third down to set up former Fort Osage running back Dalton Krysa’s 1-yard scoring plunge with 3:51 remaining in the opening quarter.
The score remained the same until former Blue Springs South running back Winston Wright set up what proved to be the game’s winning points by breaking runs of 12 and 38 yards, with the latter setting up Missouri at the Kansas 11-yard line.
Four plays later Kearney’s Matt Slenker booted a 21-yard field goal to give Missouri an insurmountable 10-0 advantage with 4:28 remaining in the third quarter.
Once the final seconds ticked off of the clock the Missouri faithful erupted in celebration after watching the first all-star classic played in front of a Missouri crowd.
“This was a great experience,” Toca said. “I had a lot of fun. We did very well for the little bit of time we were together. We bonded very well and kept each other fired up out there.”
Defensively for Missouri, Toca earned Missouri MVP honors after finishing the game with 2 1/2 sacks and a host of tackles for losses. Blue Springs South’s Armahn King added a fumble recovery and three tackles for losses for Missouri.
Wright led the Show-Me rushing attack with 45 yards on 7 carries. While Garner led the aerial game with 4 receptions for 59 yards and Schottel completed 5 of 9 passes for 66 yards.
Walker ran the ball three times for Kansas and netted 85 yards as the Sunflower State out rushed Missouri 156-98. Blue Valley Northwest signal caller Mike Petersen completed 2 of 4 passes for 47 yards and Blue Valley’s Luke Rampy caught a pair of passes for 40 yards.
Olathe North linebacker Doug Peete earned Kansas MVP honors.
