The 0-6 Salina South Cougars were eyeing their first win of the season on Friday night, playing host to a team who had struggled in their own right recently. The Goddard-Eisenhower Tigers had dropped their last four games and were nursing a 1-5 record on the year.

And early on Friday night, it appeared the Cougars were on their way to their first win. The South defense held Eisenhower to -5 total yards in the first quarter and no first downs. And on the heels of that defensive performance, the Cougars put together one of their best offensive drives of the season, amassing 69 yards over 14 plays, eating up over 6:30 on the clock in the opening quarter.

On the final play of the first period, Junior RB Ian Andalon broke into the end zone on a 6-yard rush, giving South a 7-0 lead and all of the momentum.

In the second quarter; however, the momentum would swing back to the Tigers.

A defensive stop from the Tigers forced South into a punting situation, where Max Brown would break through the line, block the punt and scoop it up to run for a touchdown. On that play, the Tigers seemingly swiped all the wind from the Cougars sails.

With just 20-seconds to go in the first half, Quarterback Tyner Horn of Eisenhower would connect with Michael Dudrey for a 9-yard touchdown pass, and Eisenhower took a 14-7 lead to the locker room.

In the second half, it was all Tigers, all the time.

Noah Hegarty would score on a pair of one-yard touchdown runs and Eisenhower would lead 28-7 after three quarters.

In the final period, Eisenhower’s Lucas Dickman would break loose for a 26-yard touchdown run, and then Tyner Horn would score on a 4-yard touchdown run with just over a minute to play, stamping an exclamation point on the Tigers’ 42-7 win on Friday night.

With the loss, South falls to 0-7 on the season, solidifying the 16th-seed in the 5A west bracket regardless of the outcome in their week 8 matchup with Maize South. Goddard-Eisenhower improves to 2-5 on the season and they will host rival Goddard next week.

The Nex-Tech Wireless Player of the Game was RB Ian Andalon whose efforts offensively paced the Cougars. And the H&R Block of the Game was OL Brayden Fencl, who helped to create great running lanes for the aforementioned Andalon all night long.

Score by Quarter:

Eisenhower – 0 – 14 – 14 – 14 / 42

Salina South – 7  – 0 – 0 – 0 / 7