- Details
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Friday's city showdown between Washburn Rural and Shawnee Heights featured enough big plays to fill a couple of highlight reels and more than a few miscues by both teams.
But when the dust finally settled after nearly three hours, the visiting Junior Blues had prevailed in a 51-41 shootout.
Washburn Rural celebrates after Friday night's 51-41 win at Shawnee Heights. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
The tone for the night was set when Rural and Heights traded 64 and 73-yard touchdowns over the opening three minutes and the pace barely slowed the rest of the night in the non-league battle between the two longtime city rivals.
"It was a typical first ballgame,'' Washburn Rural coach Steve Buhler said. "Cramps on cool weather, lots of great plays, great athletes on the field, big plays in big games, guys stepped up. We've been talking about that, who were going to be the guys to step up?''
After trailing 14-7 at the 4:47 mark of the opening quarter, Washburn never trailed after scoring 20 straight points to build a 27-14 advantage with 5:26 left in the first half.
But Shawnee Heights, which trailed by as many as 16 points, clawed back time and time again to get as close as three on multiple occasions and the game wasn't officially decided until Junior Blue senior Nate Selm fielded a T-Bird onsides kick attempt and rambled 47 yards for the night's final TD with 14 seconds remaining.
"Nate Selm, a great baseball player, and he showed it on that last play,'' Buhler said. "He scooped that thing up on that hop and he was gone.
"It was great to see that and one thing we've been preaching already is the idea of being persistent and staying with it and playing through and I was really happy with our kids. There were times where we could of just kind of let off the gas a little bit and been upset about some things, but our guys played through a lot of mistakes and kept playing hard and that's what we've been preaching all fall.''
Selm, who caught a 31-yard touchdown pass earlier in the game, had an idea of what he wanted to do on the onsides attempt, beginning with making he sure he caught the ball.
"You've got to,'' Selm said. "I was just kind of reacting. I saw it come off his foot and I was just like, 'There's no one coming to get me and I might as well take this one to the house.'
"I watch You Tube videos and knew the rule that you can go get it before 10 yards and I saw that little gap and took off.''
Selm said that Rural knew it was going to have to come up with big plays to hold off a talented Shawnee Heights team.
"A crazy game,'' Selm said. "Heights is really good and their offense can score and those dudes are all really good. They can throw the ball and catch the ball. They've got a ton of great athletes. Aiden Scott (Heights' star quarterback), I grew up with him and he can heave the ball, man.''
- Details
By CHARLES SPURLOCK
Special to TopSports.news
The Seaman Lady Vikings opened the home portion of their 2025 volleyball season by hosting the Jefferson West Tigers Thursday night. After four games, Jeff West was victorious with scores of 25-21, 25-17, 20-25, 25-11.
Tatiana Dowling's Seaman volleyball team fell to 1-2 on the season Thursday night with a four-set loss to Jefferson West. [File photo/TSN]
Game 1 saw Seaman jump out to an early 6-2 lead, causing Jeff West to take a timeout. Jeff West battled back to tie the game at 14 and continued on its run to pull ahead 20-17. Following a couple of timeouts by Seaman, the Tigers were able to close out a 25-21 win.
Jeff West continued its inspired play and jumped out to an early 7-3 lead in the second set, forcing Seaman to call a timeout. The Tigers stretched their lead to 15-7, but the Lady Vikes responded with a 7-3 run to trim the lead down to just four, 18-14. But Jeff West closed out Game 2 with a 7-3 run of its own to win 25-17.
“I think we came out a little bit sluggish and thought it would just be given to us,'' Seaman coach Tatiana Dowling said. "It was a good wake up call to go down 0-2 because it forced us to find a little fire within ourselves.”
- Details
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The Washburn University football team will open its MIAA schedule at 1 p.m. Saturday in Yager Stadium against Northwest Missouri, with the Ichabods looking to build off of their 20-17 season-opening come-from-behind win over Truman State.
Quarterback Justin Lewis threw for 352 yards and two touchdowns in his Washburn debut, helping lead the Ichabods to a 20-17 win over Truman State. [File photo/TSN]
"I was real proud of how we came back,'' Ichabod coach Zach Watkins said about the Truman win. "We faced some adversity early and we battled back. We've got to improve some things up front on the offensive line with the run game and the protection. Truman State did a really good job with things we hadn't seen on film and we weren't prepared for, so we had to adjust during the game and that's what good teams and good coaches do and our staff did that.
"They hit us in the mouth early (opening up a 10-0 lead) and we adjusted to come back.''
The Bearcats are 0-1 after falling 38-14 at then-No. 11-ranked Minnesota State.
"Northwest is extremely talented,'' Watkins said. "They didn't play their best game against Minnesota State-Mankato the first game, but the same as us, they want to improve in a big way from Week 1 to Week 2. They're extremely well-coached with a lot of good players and they're still Northwest Missouri and an elite program in Division II.''
Northwest topped Washburn 51-34 last fall and leads the all-time series 36-7. The Bearcats have won the last three meetings overall and the last two games in Topeka.
After Week 1, the Ichabods are fourth in the MIAA in total defense, allowing 333 yards per game and ninth in total offense, averaging 315 yards per game.
The Ichabods have the No. 1-ranked passing offense in the league, averaging 352 yards per game. Quarterback Justin Lewis is on top of the MIAA in passing after the opening week, passing for 352 yards and two touchdowns against Truman.
Lewis completed 20 straight passes at one point, setting a Washburn and MIAA single-game record.
Chase Allen-Jackman celebrates one of his two touchdowns in Washburn's 20-17 season-opening win over Truman State. [File photo/TSN]
Junior Chase Allen-Jackman leads the conference with 127 yards receiving while junior D.J. Bell is fourth after his 98-yard performance against the Bulldogs.
Sophomores L.J. Minner and J.C. Heim are tied for the MIAA lead with 11 tackles and Kamble Haverkamp leads the MIAA with three tackles for loss and two sacks.
- Details
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The Washburn Ichabod women's soccer team tied No. 25-ranked Maryville 1-1 in Friday's season-opener in St. Louis, Mo., forging the tie on freshman Leah Henke's first collegiate goal in the 89th minute with seconds remaining.
Leah Henke
"I thought our performance was a good first step today,'' Washburn coach Davy Phillips said. "I loved how resilient and steadfast the team stayed through some adversity.
"We will continue to work on how to turn good performances into results, but I'm so proud of this team for how they played today to get a point on the road vs a Top 25 team."
Gina Catanzaro scored in the 37th minute to give Maryville the lead late in the first half.
Washburn recorded three first-half shots, with one being on goal, while WU goalkeeper Alli Harrington recorded two saves in the first half.
The Ichabods started the second half strong, recording two shots in the first minute of the half, with one being put on goal by freshman forward Kate Hinck.
Maryville received a red card in the 56th minute and finished the match with 10 players. After the red card, Washburn would take control of the game with the extra player on the field, leading to Henke's game-tying goal.
Washburn recorded 11 shots, with five on goal.
Eight freshmen made their Washburn debuts in the game.
Washburn will play again in the St. Louis area on Saturday afternoon as they take on Missouri-St. Louis at 12 p.m.
- Details
By VINCE LOVERGINE
TopSports.news
Topeka High opened the 2024 football season against Wichita West and won, 52-19.
The 2025 opener was a duplicate of dominance from the Trojans, who dismantled the Pioneers once again, 40-14 on Thursday night at Hummer Sports Park.
Senior quarterback Zane Smith had a hand in three touchdowns in Thursday's 40-14 Topeka High win over Wichita West. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Topeka High possessed the ball six times in the first half and scored on their first four possessions and led 27-0 at halftime. The Trojans didn’t give up much of anything to Wichita West, allowing just two pass completions, recovering a fumble, posting two sacks and recovering a muffed punt in that first half alone.
Trojan coach Jason Filbeck said last season when they played Wichita West, they led early with some broken plays and he wanted to change the script this year.
“We wanted to come out here and operate clean and actually score with the plays we actually practiced,” Filbeck said. “Tonight was clean. Halftime killed us. We were rolling and halftime just stopped that momentum.”
Filbeck was excited to see how his offense moved the ball in that first half and kept that up-tempo going. He was pleased to see senior quarterback Zane Smith’s efforts, with Smith having a hand in three touchdowns, two on the ground and one passing.
“He’s (Smith) an athlete,” Filbeck said. “He needs to stop trying and get hit. I keep telling him, 'It's okay to get out of bounds after you get your gain. He did a good job for the most part. There were a couple of plays where he maybe could’ve thrown it away but he’s a high school quarterback, he did a good job.”
Smith had 54 yards on the ground, including a 33-yard score which put High up 40-8 in the fourth quarter. He completed 7 of 12 passes for 121 yards and a 9-yard touchdown toss to Courtney Sanders to put the Trojans up 20-0 in the first quarter.
“It felt great to get back out there,” Smith said. “Senior year, last first game, we dominated but we have a lot of stuff to fix and we just have to go week by week and just keep playing.
“All week we were talking about the holes in the (Wichita West) defense and we hit them all night.”
Sanders left the game in the second quarter with what appeared to be a leg injury and did not return to the game.
Sophomore Ricardo Dowd had 86 total yards in Thursday's 40-14 Topeka High win over Wichita West. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Ricardo Dowd scored two touchdowns on the ground in the first half and finished with 86 total yards. Even Fred Stayhorn got in on the action, scoring a 20-yard TD and finishing with 40 total yards.
Smith went on to say about Dowd that he’s a ‘dog’ and he’s happy for his success and they knew what they were going to get coming off Dowd's injury last season. As for Dowd himself, he credited his offensive line.
“It was just the team and they were going out there and blocking, doing their assignments, and I couldn’t have done what I did without them,” Dowd said.
