CENTRAL 42, VALLEY CENTER 24

In the first half at Valley Center on Friday, the Salina Central Mustangs probably played their best half of football in at least a couple of years. They were superb in execution and dominated the Valley Center Hornets in every phase on their way to a 39-point halftime lead. The Mustangs were not nearly as sharp in the second half, but nonetheless picked up an impressive road win, 42-24.

The Mustangs took the first drive and marched 80 yards with running back Micah Moore finishing it off with a four-yard touchdown run. Valley Center would get a big pass play to get them in the redzone but their drive would stall and Cade Martin came on to make a 35-yard field goal to get the Hornets on the board.

Central then finished off the rest of the half scoring the next 36 points. Moore would break tackles and rumble in for a 21-yard TD plus a two-point conversion to give the Mustangs a 14-3 lead. Then, quarterback Parker Kavanagh hit wideout Logan Losey on a ten-yard slant for a score and Central led 21-3 at the end of one.

With just over five minutes left in the second quarter, Losey fielded a punt and took advantage of a couple of key blocks and raced 71 yards to paydirt and a 28-3 lead. The Central defense by this time had completely shut down the Hornets’ offensive attack and kept giving the ball back to the Mustang offense.

Moore scored his third rushing TD of the half on a one-yard plunge, and then in the final seconds of the half, on 4th-and-19, Kavanagh fired a 26-yard touchdown strike to Hayden Vidricksen to cap the incredible half with a 42-3 Mustang lead.

Valley Center would not throw in the towel. They competed very well and would control most of the action in the second half. QB Hank Welu fired two touchdown passes to Kade Wilson and another to Brayden Boyd for all of the second half scoring. The Mustangs were not in any real danger of surrendering the large lead, however the pedestrian second half production allows them to get back to work this coming week with some points of emphasis.

Central improved to 2-2 and Valley Center fell to 2-2. The Mustangs will play at Ark City next week.