KANSAS CITY, Kan.-After a sloppy first half, play picked up in the second half of Saturday’s Kansas State Spring Football game held at Sporting Park, the home of Major League Soccer’s Sporting KC club a move that was made necessary due to the ongoing construction of the new Vanier Football Complex at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
In the end, the Purple squad prevailed with a 55-24 victory however with the score flipped at halftime the real final score was 66-13 in favor of the Purple before an announced crowd of 17,080 on an overcast, chilly afternoon.
The First Quarter featured just one offensive touchdown, a four-yard run by Running Back Charles Jones, one of his two scores on the day. Jesse Mack returned a Jesse Ertz interception for a touchdown and Taylor Hilgers pounced on the ball in the end zone for another score after a muffed punt.
Winston Dimel scored the second quarter’s only touchdown on a three-yard run. He would add a five-yard score early in the fourth quarter. Elijah Lee scored the second defensive touchdown of the afternoon on an 18-yard return of an interception by Quarterback Zach Davidson and Dominique Heath electrified the fans who remained at Sporting Park for the whole game with a 75-yard punt return for a score. The game’s lone touchdown pass was by Ertz to Andre Davis for 22 yards with four minutes left in the game.
Alex Delton, the Freshman out of Hays High School completed three of 12 pass attempts for 22 yards and also registered 10 carries for 48 yards. Joe Hubener had a tough day completing just one pass in eight attempts and had one interception. Deante Burton was the game’s leading receiver with four catches for 107 yards and Kyle Klein had five catches for 56 yards. The leading rusher among the running backs was Justin Silmon who had nine carries for 65 yards.
The kicking game was solid as both Matthew McCrane and Jack Cantele combined to make all of their field goal and extra point attempts.
K-State will open the 2015 season on September 5 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium against South Dakota. It will be the first game with new seating and facility on the north end of the stadium.
