Three-peat complete: Mill Valley football wins Kansas 5A high school state title
Winning a state championship will never feel normal to Mill Valley coach Joel Applebee, no matter how long this dynasty keeps rolling.
Mill Valley won its third straight Class 5A championship in Kansas high school football on Saturday with a 28-14 win over Maize at Carnie Smith Stadium in Pittsburg.
It was the program’s fifth state title since 2015 and its first three-peat, as the Jaguars completed a 12-1 season.
“It means everything because of these kids,” Applebee said, holding back tears like he had just won his first title. “The work they put in is just unbelievable. They bought into hard work and understanding the value of each day and showing up and working hard, then good things will happen.”
Like it has done in Pittsburg the last two championships, Mill Valley established its lead early.
Mill Valley scored on its first two drives and took a 14-0 lead into halftime after senior running back Reice Kennedy, who finished with 230 rushing yards, and junior quarterback Hayden Jay, who threw for 172 yards and a pair of touchdowns, both scored rushing touchdowns.
But the story of this championship victory came from Mill Valley’s defense, which pressured Maize’s start quarterback, Avery Johnson, better than any opponent had all season.
While Johnson finished with 325 total yards of offense, including a 68-yard touchdown run, Mill Valley’s defense made the four-star class of 2023 recruit earn every one of them the hard way. Their pressure up front also led to Johnson throwing two first-half interceptions in Mill Valley territory.
“We saw on film where he’s not as good when he deals with pressure, so we wanted to put his linemen in his lap and make him throw in pressure and throw quickly,” said Mill Valley sophomore defensive lineman Truman Griffith, who finished with a sack.
Stopping Johnson completely isn’t possible, evident by the touchdown run, but Mill Valley did about as good as job as it felt possible in containing him.
“You stress all week to your kids that they’ve got to be disciplined up front,” Applebee said. “He’s a special, special player. We wanted to put a little pressure on him and see how he dealt with that. I thought our kids did a great job of being disciplined with their assignments and he still broke that one long one, but that’s because of how special of a player he is.”
“Normally we can count on our offense putting points on the board, but we knew coming into the game they were going to be very good defensively,” Maize coach Gary Guzman said. “And they were. They made it tough. We had trouble establishing the running game and it’s tough when you can’t run the ball. We never really got in rhythm and never got it going.”
Mill Valley junior linebacker Broc Worcester and senior defensive back Kris Twigg, who came up with one of the interceptions, said the credit goes to Mill Valley’s defensive front for making Johnson throw with pressure in his face constantly.
“We had spies in a lot of our formations and we had our d-line wrapping around the outside to try to keep him in the pocket for as long as we could,” Worcester said. “We just focused on pressuring him and making him throw off-balance and off his back foot while running. I thought we did a good job.”
“Our D-line forced a lot of bad throws and that allowed us d-backs to play way more aggressively,” Twigg said. “They helped us so much, so we give them all the credit.”
Mill Valley took a 20-0 lead early in the third quarter when Mill Valley’s 6-foot-5 star receiver Kendrick Jones came up with a jump ball in the end zone for a 20-yard touchdown catch.
But Maize (10-3) proved its resiliency, trimming Mill Valley’s lead to 20-14 with still more than 10 minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
Faced with the game’s biggest drive, the Jaguars showed their championship pedigree. Jay calmly guided Mill Valley 80 yards down the field in eight plays, capped by a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jared Napoli to all but seal the victory with a two-touchdown lead.
With both teams returning large junior classes, each side was already making preparations for a potential rematch next fall.
“Next year I’ve got to be better as a quarterback and better as a leader,” Johnson said. “No doubt I think we can get here again next year and hopefully when we do, we can see these guys again and we’ll be on the other end of it.”
“This one feels amazing because I’ve been here all three years and we’ve won every time,” Worcester said. “And we plan on doing the same thing next year. We want one more next year.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2021 at 5:45 PM.
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