Andale reaches second state championship game in three years, throttling Cheney
Less than a month ago, Andale and Cheney were tied at 14 at halftime in the regular season finale.
At halftime Friday night, Andale was one score away from a running clock against the same team. The Indians beat Cheney 55-20 in their 2019 Kansas Class 3A state semifinal to reach their second title game in three years and third since they last won it in 2014.
“We were just so fired up,” senior quarterback Easton Hunter said. “We come out and punch them straight in the mouth and keep on going.”
Hunter scored the game’s opening touchdown. After a quick stop on defense, Hunter took the snap and found a crease in the defense. He went for a 54-yard score.
He said when he hit the open field, he knew his team had it Friday night.
Andale doesn’t typically get two shots at the same team. The last time it happened was 2011 against Rose Hill when the Indians lost both games and finished 5-6. It was believed to be the most losses in school history.
So after a close call against Cheney in Week 8 when Andale poked out a 29-22 home win, the captains called for a team meeting.
“We told everyone, ‘We need to get this going if we want to win state,’ ” senior cornerback Scotti Easter said. “We cranked it up big time as you can see.”
Accountability and flexibility are two pillars of the Andale football program. Friday night, Andale’s leading rusher, junior Eli Rowland, was out with a groin injury.
Hunter, senior Mac Brand and junior Noah Meyer stepped up in his place and accounted for every first half touchdown.
By the time the teams came back onto the field after halftime, Andale was already penciled into the state championship game Nov. 30 in Hutchinson. And before the third quarter ended, the game announcer called attention to the starting defense for its efforts as the junior varsity team took the field.
Brand said the program isn’t beholden to one player.
“That’s just one man,” Brand said. “You take down one, we’ve got 60 more to fill in.”
Although Andale didn’t lose a lot of senior production from last year’s state semifinal team, it lost arguably its most iconic player in school history, Mason Fairchild, who earned Top 11 honors as a defensive end and tight end. He now plays for Kansas.
The Indians also lost three All-AVCTL IV first team starting offensive linemen. It hasn’t mattered.
Cheney scored one touchdown on Andale’s starters Friday as Cardinal senior Riley Petz took a reverse on a kickoff 75 yards to the end zone. The Andale defense didn’t give up any points.
“We’ve got guys that, man, they look hungry when they’re out there,” coach Dylan Schmidt said. “It just seems like at every spot, we have somebody there that’s ready to go.”
Cheney entered the sub-state round for the first time in school history after beating Scott City 38-7 on the road. Now Andale will face another Cinderella.
Perry-Lecompton (9-3) will await the Indians in Hutchinson after beating Topeka Hayden 35-27 on the road. It will be the school’s second state championship game appearance in school history and the first since 2008.
The Kaws have never won a state title. They didn’t even win their district this season, but they have won six straight, including two over Hayden.
Their opponents entered their playoff meeting with Perry-Lecompton with a 33-5 record.
Andale’s football title game appearance comes on the heels of the school’s volleyball team achieving the same feat Nov. 2, less than a month earlier, in the same city.
It also comes two years since Andale last reached the playoffs’ final weekend. In 2017, the Indians went to the title game in Class 4A-Division I. They lost 47-7 to Bishop Miege.
Schmidt said the energy has been extraordinarily high.
Easter said this year will be different because the seniors have played together since they were in elementary school and a state title has always been the dream.
Brand joked and said it might come down to one simple thing:
“We don’t play Miege,” Brand said.
Schmidt has been around Andale football almost his entire life. He has seen state championship teams. He has coached a state runner-up and a team that fell in the semifinal round.
Schmidt said he hopes this is one of the special ones.
“We’re going to find out,” Schmidt said. “We’re going to give it everything we’ve got. I know our guys are pumped and ready to go.”
This story was originally published November 23, 2019 at 12:18 AM.