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’Hounds get ‘Conq’d’ in finale
Fort Scott Community College’s football team saw its season close at Frary Field with a 27-7 loss to Dodge City in Jayhawk Conference play.
The Greyhounds finished the season 1-6 in conference and 2-8 overall, avoiding last place on a tie-breaker over Independence, which was also 1-6, 2-8, on the basis of a 33-0 win over the defending conference champions at Independence on Sept. 22.
The Greyhounds were unable to win a home game this season, the first time that’s happened since 2005. Fort Scott’s last home win came Oct. 21, 2017 against Ellsworth, Iowa. They’ve lost their last five at Frary Field.
The Greyhound offense barely made it to 200 yards of total offense with their rushing game once again stymied. They managed just 80 yards on 20 rushes, losing 12 yards on 7 carries in the second half.
In the second half, Fort Scott managed just 66 yards of total offense on 17 plays. They ran only 40 plays in the game to Dodge City’s 75.
Quarterback Gunnar See didn’t play at all in this game, still suffering from effects of an injury that occurred during the Oct. 20 home game against Butler. Backup Justin Agner started but was also injured, leaving wide receiver Jaylan Jenkins to take over as the quarterback in the second half.
Dodge City scored first on Anthony Watkins’ 65-yard run with 4:19 left in the first quarter. He appeared to fumble forward into the end zone at the end of the run. But the officials ruled that the ball didn’t come loose until after he crossed the goal line.
Agner set up the Greyhounds’ only score with his legs. On the first third play of a drive that began at his own 35-yard line, Agner scrambled and broke a tackle on a 54-yard gain to the Dodge City 3. A scuffle, to put it mildly, broke out at the end of the play after a Conquistador shoved a Fort Scott player. After things settled down, Agner may have suffered his injury on that play. From that point on, he would hold his right (passing) arm in an awkward manner when he was not ready to take a snap.
Kareem Walker took the snap in the Wildcat formation and went into the end zone with 10:25 left in the second quarter, tying the score 7-7.
Watkins scored again, this time from 13 yards out, with 3:32 to go in the half to put the Conquistadors (2-5, 4-7) up 14-7. Dodge City converted two fourth downs during the 14-play drive. The first was a fourth-and-6 from the Fort Scott 31 on an 8-yard pass from Drew Harris to Tyrice Richie. The second was a 2-yard run by Watkins on 4th-and-2 from the 15 on the play before his score.
Fort Scott switched between the Wildcat, with Walker as the quarterback, and the regular offense with Agner on the ensuing drive. The offense was able to move the ball with Agner keeping the drive going when he completed a third-and-14 pass from his own 46 to Jon Jiles for 27 yards. Agner was sacked for a four-yard loss on the next play but rushed for 18 and a first down to the 13 on the play after.
A holding penalty moved the ball back to the 20 on the next play. Darshun Williams intercepted a pass in the end zone to give possession back to the Conqs with 26 seconds to go. They chose to run out the half with the lead.
Agner didn’t appear in the second half. He finished the day 5 of 10 passing for 43 yards and ran 5 times for 79 yards to lead the ’Hounds in rushing. The Greyhounds had only four runs of longer than 3 yards in the entire game — Agner had three of them. That also means the other Fort Scott runners totaled one yard on 15 carries.
There was no scoring in the third quarter. Three of the four possessions that started in the quarter ended in punts. The fourth carried over into the final stanza of the season and finished with a 31-yard field goal by Devonta Guillory with 13:01 left. The score, which made it 17-7, capped a 15-play, 76-yard drive that ate 7:22 of the clock.
Jenkins managed to lead the Greyhounds down to the Dodge City 10 on the ensuing possession. The first play was a 15-yard pass to Jiles to the Greyhound 49. Jenkins also found Ryan Wood for 24 yards to the Dodge 26. A pass interference penalty moved the ball to the 10. But defensive lineman Elisha Sion intercepted a pass and ran it back to midfield.
Guillory kicked another field goal, this from 30 yards, to make it 20-7 with 7:31 to go.
Williams intercepted another pass on the first play of the ensuing possession, returning it to the Fort Scott 13. Five plays later, Harris kept it himself for a 5-yard score that made it 27-7 with 5:15 remaining.
Jenkins, outside of the two interceptions, performed admirably as the emergency quarterback. He completed 6 of 10 passes for 78 yards. Jiles caught 3 passes for 60 yards.
Watkins, who already had 160 yards at the half, finished with 249 yards on 34 carries for Dodge City, which gained 306 of its 402 total yards on the ground on 58 carries.
Fort Scott finished with 201 yards of total offense, its second-fewest of the season. A 73-yard output at Iowa Central last week was the only lower total.
The season ended for both teams with this game. The Greyhounds’ 2-8 record is their worst since finishing with the same record in 2015.
NOTES — Dodge City won its fourth consecutive game in the series but Fort Scott leads overall 33-20-1....
Fort Scott finished the season as the conference’s leader in passing offense at 207.0 yards per game. In their first six games before See’s injury, the ’Hounds were averaging 284.5 passing yards per game.
Over the final three games, in which they scored a total of 23 points, Fort Scott averaged only 136 yards passing and 170.6 yards in total offense, averaging fewer than 3 yards per play. They gained a total of 104 yards on the ground on 94 carries, which averaged out to 1.1 yards per carry....
Fort Scott averaged 116.5 yards rushing in its first four games but never broke the 100-yard mark as a team after the Independence game on Sept. 22. In fact, the 80 yards they gained in Saturday’s game was their highest total in the season’s final six contests....
Fort Scott’s defense allowed 384.0 yards per game, last in the conference. They allowed 221.8 yards on the ground per game, last in the conference and 63rd in the nation. However, they were fourth in the Jayhawk in passing defense, allowing 162.2 yards per game....
The Greyhounds surrendered 371 points this season, the fourth-highest total in the program’s history. The school record is 432 points allowed by a winless 2004 team. The next three highest-scoring seasons have come since 2014....
Fort Scott scored fewer than 10 points in each of its final three games (7 points vs. Iowa Western, 9 vs. Iowa Central and 7 vs. Dodge City). The last time there was such a stretch in a single season was back in 1984, when the Greyhounds scored a total of 13 points over a three-game span from Oct. 13-27 (6 vs. Coffeyville, 0 at Dodge City, 7 vs. Garden City)...
Despite missing all or parts of the final four games, See led the conference in passing with an average of 208 yard per game. He also led the conference in completion percentage, 62.9....
Jiles led the conference in receiving yards per game, 66.7, while Steven Smothers led in receptions per game, 4.3, with Jiles second at 4.1....
DODGE CITY....................... 7 7 0 13 — 27
FORT SCOTT....................... 0 7 0 0 — 7
| Team stats | Dodge City | Fort Scott |
| First downs | 22 | 9 |
| Rushes-yards | 58-306 | 20-80 |
| Passing yards | 96 | 121 |
| Total offense | 402 | 201 |
| Passing (c-a-i) | 8-17-0 | 11-20-3 |
| Sacked-yards lost | 3-27 | 1-4 |
| Punt returns-yards | 1-12 | 1-3 |
| Kickoff returns-yards | 2-30 | 5-111 |
| Int. rets.-yards | 3-67 | 0-0 |
| Punts-avg. | 4-29.5 | 6-45.0 |
| Fumbles-lost | 1-0 | 1-0 |
| Penalties-yards | 8-70 | 5-60 |
Scoring plays
First quarter
DC — Watkins 65 run (Guillory kick), 4:19 [2, 83, :44]
Second quarter
FS — Walker 3 run (Rieser kick), 10:25 [4, 65, 1:26]
DC — Watkins 13 run (Guillory kick), 3:23 [14, 67, 6:56]
Fourth quarter
DC — FG Guillory 31, 13:01 [15, 76, 7:22]
DC — FG Gulliroy 30, 7:31 [6, 37, 2:46]
DC — Harris 5 run (Guillory kick), 5:15 [5, 13, 2:04]
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Dodge City — Watkins 34-249, Theriot 13-36, Cotto 4-13, Harris 7-8. Fort Scott — Agner 5-79, Walker 5-17, Jenkins 4-1, Bonds 4-0, Fils-Aime 1-minus 3, team 1-minus 14.
PASSING: Dodge City — Harris 8-17-0-96. Fort Scott — Agner 5-10-1-43, Jenkins 6-10-2-78.
RECEIVING: Dodge City — Warner 3-59, Minter 2-27, Watkins 2-2, Richie 1-8. Fort Scott — Jiles 3-60, Bonds 2-19, Abrams 2-8, Wood 1-24, Lewis 1-6, Curry 1-3, White 1-1.
MISSED FIELD GOALS: None.