Kearney Rolls Grandview 63-12 in Conference Championship

Kearney established themselves as the Suburban Blue Conference big dogs with a 56-6 halftime lead in a crushing victory over Grandview on Kearney’s Senior Night. Kearney scored three touchdowns in the first quarter and five in the second quarter against a Grandview team that entered the game with a 4-0 conference record.

Zach Grace scores on a 24 yard touchdown run with 56 seconds left in the first half. Grace finished the night with three touchdowns.

“I thought we came out and executed. We really got on our boys this week about getting off to a fast start. We gave up the one score early, but the defense kept turning the ball over and set us up with short fields all night. We scored a couple times on defense – any time you can do that, things go really well,” said Head Coach Logan Minnick.

Kearney spread the touchdowns among the usual suspects: Zach Grace and Cameron Emmons on the ground and in the air, Casey Rooney in the air to Manny Linthacum and Danny Petree while the defense held Grandview to 12 points on a David Franklin to KK Wright 23-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter and a KK Wright 48-yard run with three seconds remaining in the third quarter.

Senior running back Vann Grimes celebrated Senior Night scoring his first touchdown of the season on a 2-yard carry in the second quarter. “I was really excited for Vann Grimes, one of our senior running backs who doesn’t get a lot of playing time, got a touchdown in the first half. He was unbelievably fired up with that,” said Minnick.

 Kearney is 8-0 with a final regular season game at Belton next week. A conference title is one step to greater expectations by these Kearney Bulldogs.

“We set our goals for the season, we told our kids all year, ‘if you win a conference championship, that goes up on a banner in the gym and it stays forever,’” said Minnick. “With our position in district, we’ll be hosting at least one playoff game, so our kids are excited for that.”

 KPGZ Sports – Mike Davis contributed to this story.