Burgoyne, Waddell help Collegiate race by Mulvane

MULVANE – It only took Collegiate’s Nathan Burgoyne 15 seconds and 78 yards to put the Spartans ahead, as he returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown Friday night. Burgoyne added three more scores to propel the Spartans to a 46-18 victory and 4-0 start.

“Coach (Mike) Gehrer told us to come out with a spark, coming off of the Andale game our emotions were high,” Burgoyne said. “The kickoff return was really a big energizer for us.”

Teammate Austin Waddell had four touchdowns as well (three passing). Waddell placed his pass perfectly in the hands of his receiver Jack Larson to give Collegiate the 21-6 lead midway through the second quarter.

“They ran a man-to-man defense, and I knew my guy Jack could make the play, he’s got a lot of speed and great hands,” Waddell said. “I just lobbed it up and put it perfectly in his hands, I couldn’t ask for a better pass.”

Mulvane quarterback Jayden Price was hard for the Spartans to bring down, as Price was able to break tackles and throw the ball to find his open receivers. At one point, Price broke four tackles, and then found key target Ethan Evans to set the Wildcats up at the Spartan 8-yard-line. On the ensuing play, Price used his feet to find the end zone to get Mulvane to within 21-12. But that’s the closest the Wildcats had it the rest of the first half.

“Jayden has taken some leadership of this football team, and that’s really hard to do as just a sophomore,” Mulvane coach Dave Fennewald said. “He had some just ‘oh wow’ moments for us tonight, even though we didn’t come out with the win, he played well. He’s got a very bright future ahead of him.”

Mulvane took the opening kick of the second half down to the Spartan 26-yard line, which led to an 8-yard touchdown pass from Price to a wide-open Miles Patterson in the middle of the end zone. That pulled the Wildcats to within 21-18.

Collegiate didn’t allow much more.

“We felt like we were giving them momentum there, especially when they pulled within three points,” Gehrer said. “When we focus we’re pretty good. We got our balance back in the second half which really helped us. We’re a very resilliant team.”

Collegiate scored four more touchdowns from there. After a breakout 37-yard touchdown run by John Egan put the Spartans back up by 10, the ground game took control.

“Austin and Nathan are a two-headed animal,” Gehrer said. “When you got Nathan with all that speed that can get on the perimeter, and then you have Austin who makes great decisions, they’re two different vehicles you can get in and drive, and we’ll see where they take us.”

Sean Boston

The Wichita Eagle

VarsityKansas.com

316-621-0726

Twitter: @Sean_Boston_23

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 10:04 AM, <ng_wic@cci.mcclatchy.com> wrote:

This story was originally published September 25, 2015 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Burgoyne, Waddell help Collegiate race by Mulvane."