The Abilene Cowboy football team traveled for the first time this season with a trip to Concordia Friday night. The Panthers were coming off a huge 41-40, 4 OT victory last week at Wamego and rode that momentum in a dominant 51-20 win over Abilene.
The Panthers had the best NCKL record last season at 4-1, they finished 5-4 overall a year ago under 3rd year Head Coach, Jordan Echer. Concordia has improved in each of his three years and this may be his best team yet. The Panthers are led by 5’7” 185 Senior, Keyan Miller. He scored 4 touchdowns in the opener and matched that total against Abilene. He was everywhere Friday night for the Panthers. He scored 2 rushing touchdowns, a receiving touchdown and returned an interception for a score. Miller also rushed for 146 yards, on 8 carries to go along with a 51 yard touchdown reception, which was his only catch.
Miller opened the scoring in the game with a 67 yard run on the Panthers first possession of the game. Abilene would fumble the ensuing kickoff and Concordia would score 2 plays later on a Cameron Cleveland 21 yard run to make the score 16-0 after the conversion with 10:38 to play in the opening quarter. The Cowboys answered with an 8 play drive that was capped by an 11 yard touchdown pass play from Stocton Timbrook to Nathan Hartman to cut the deficit to 16-6 with 4:51 to play in the opening quarter. The Concordia offense would retake control of the game. Miller quickly gave the Panthers back the momentum with another 67 yard touchdown run. Aiden Poore would get into the act with a 30 yard touchdown reception from Quarterback Cav Carlgren to give Concordia a 30-6 lead with 1:26 to play in the first quarter.
It was more of Miller in the second quarter. He opened the Panthers scoring in the quarter with an interception return of around 50 yards to increase the Concordia lead to 38-6 just 10 seconds into the 2nd quarter. The next score came on Miller’s touchdown reception and then the Panthers finished off the scoring with a Stryker Hake 13 yard touchdown grab with 3:54 before the half.
Abilene outscored Concordia 14-0 in the second half. The Cowboys got on the board in the 2nd half on a 51 yard touchdown pass play from Timbrook to Cooper Wildey with 2:56 left in the 3rd quarter. Abilene Freshman, Weston Rock finished off the scoring with a 6 yard run with 2:06 left in the game.
The Nex-Tech Wireless Players of the Game were Sophomores, Timbrook and Zach Miller. Timbrook passed for 165 yard and 2 touchdowns and also ran for 31 yards. Miller ran for 46 yards and had 30 yards receiving, to go along with his work on defense.
The victory for the Panthers was their 5 straight in the series. Concordia improved to 2-0 on the season and will host Beloit next Friday. Abilene fell to 0-2 on the season and has lost 18 straight games. The Cowboys will travel to Chapman next week. The Irish opened with a victory over Sabetha in their opener but fell Friday at Holton 24-22. You can listen to Abilene vs Chapman on AM 1560 KABI and www.kabithegeneral.com 7 PM kickoff and 6:45 pregame.
