BY CAYDEN SANDERS
Hays High football made the long trip to Liberal to take on another Western Athletic Conference foe in the Liberal Redskins on Friday night. The Indians were projected to have another huge offensive game and come out of Redskin Field with a win. The Indians did just that with a 58-14 win.
The main storyline coming into the game for the Redskins was their injury list at the kicking / punting position. The Redskins have had four kickers injured within the first two games this year.
The Indians scored on their first offensive drive with a run by Roy Maroni for an untouched redzone score. On the Indians’ next drive quarterback Jaren Kanak threw an interception to Hunter Huskey.
On the following drive for the Indians, Roy Maroni ran the ball into the endzone carrying a Redskin defender with him.
“It feels good to have the running game through me and it showed. That first half was really good and now we just have to focus on what comes next and that is Garden so hopefully we can see some improvements going into next week.” Maroni said.
In the next drive for Liberal the ball went flying into the endzone for the Indians to take advantage of a safety. The Indians’ next drive after the safety gave the ball to their tight end Bryce Salmans, who found the endzone on a pitch.
Kanak had another big run to add another touchdown to the game. The Redskins special teams came through and Hunter Huskey ran the ball 70 yards to the house to score six. The ‘Skins went for two since the team did not have a kicker left on the roster.
Roy Maroni got another touchdown in his stat line with the help of lineman Parker Billinger pushing him in for six. In the next drive Maroni got his final touchdown of the night with another touchless carry.
At halftime the Redskins only had 106 total yards at the half. The Indians had 432 yards of total offence. Maroni ran in the first half for 209 yards and had four touchdowns in his stat line. With the Indians up 53-7 there was another continuous 2nd half clock.
“Yeah, Roy looks good. We have been expecting this out of Roy. We knew it was going to happen. It just helps that he is also running like a senior dude.” HHS Head Coach Tony Crough said.
The Redskins got another touchdown from Hunter Huskey, the Liberal 2-point conversion was successful pushing the game to 51-14. The Indians JV squad got one crack at scoring in the game with an end around to wide receiver Trent Summers.
Hays High improves to 3-0 and looks to defend the WAC title again in week four against a defensively sound Garden City team who is 2-1 on the year. Liberal moves to 1-2 on the year and takes on a winless Great Bend team next Friday night.