Glencoe-Silver Lake makes it three straight wins

Glencoe-Silver Lake was 19-0 on the turf at Stevens Seminary Stadium entering Friday’s week one rivalry game with Hutchinson.

New Panthers head coach Scott Tschimperle made sure his first game wasn’t the one to snap the streak.

Glencoe-Silver Lake scored on three rushing touchdowns, while holding the Tigers scoreless until the final three minutes in a 20-7 win.

With former head coach Dave Dose in the press box, Tschimperle employed the same style of play that has won back-to-back state titles for the Panthers.

Sophomore quarterback Kyler Anderson and junior running back Aaron Lueders replaced three-year starter Matt Muenchow and star running back Dusty Jurek, barely missing a beat.

“Anytime you can beat Hutch, it’s a great start to the season. I always say win or lose, you know where you stand as a team. We knew our defense was going to be solid, but I think we learned a few things from our offense,” Tschimperle said.

“This is the same way we started last year, and we had a pretty darn good year,” Tigers coach Andy Rostberg said. “They are a pretty good team. But we have a ways to go. We need to play harder.”

After a three-and-out from the Tigers on the opening drive, the Panthers put together a 10-play, 59-yard drive that was capped off by a 12-yard sweep from Lueders for the opening score.

Later in the second quarter, following a fourth-down conversion in which Anderson connected with Josh Kraby for 17 yards, senior Mitch Nowak barreled in for a four-yard score for the 14-0 lead.

Hutchinson got the ball back with 2:58 left in the half, but by the time the Tigers got to the Panthers 14-yard line, Hutchinson was out of timeouts and had only 19 seconds on the clock.

After Hintze’s first down pass sailed well out of bounds, G-SL linebackers Mitchell Keenan and Tyler Lang pulled down the Tiger quarterback inbounds allowing the clock to run out on the second down play.

“Our defense was incredible tonight,” Tschimperle said. “We knew coming in that our defense was going to have to carry us to begin the season. I thought we took care of the line of scrimmage, which was huge.”

Hutchinson had a nice drive going early in the fourth quarter, but Lang came through the line untouched and stripped the ball away from Hintze, who was attempting to hand the ball off to a back.

Panthers safety Ryan Style, who has missed some time in practice with a back injury, but still played, recovered the ball.

Seven plays later, Nowak ran in from five yards out for his second touchdown to extend the lead to 20-0.

Hutchinson put together its best drive of the day to end the shutout.

Hintze started the drive with a 22-yard pass to Cannon and connected with Muckenhirn for 21 more yards sandwiched between three runs for 11 yards from Scott.

Scott got all the way to goal line with a 10-yard run, and then finished it off on the next play with a touchdown on a key block from split end Jordan Burich.

The drive was aided by a 15-yard facemask from Panthers Whitey Sanken, who nearly sacked Hintze behind the line on a fourth down play.

“If you want to start with positives, we outscored them 7-6 in the second half. We got a good drive against their first team defense. But, we just need to come with a little more vim and vigor each play,” Rostberg said.

Brusehaver led all backs with 109 yards, while Scott had 52 yards and Michael Hantge had 38 yards for Hutchinson.

Lueders was the leading rusher for the Panthers with 83 yards. Kraby had 40 yards on 11 carries, while Nowak rushed for 22 yards.

Anderson completed five-of-nine passes for 104 yards, including a 46-yard strike to Dummer in the third quarter.

“Our sophomore quarterback played so well and made some plays that helped us win,” Tschimperle said. “That pass play that he hit our tight end down the sideline with, that reminded me of Muenchow. He had three levels to read and he made the correct read.”

Eric Kraushar is the sports editor at the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sports@hutchinsonleader.com.