By TYLER HENRY
Little Apple Post contributor
Many across the state of Kansas have made claims that Boomtown is back in Class 4A, but those people clearly haven’t been paying close enough attention.
Boomtown never left.
After a deep playoff run that took them all the way to the 4A state quarterfinals, Wamego brought back an arsenal of talent on both sides of the ball and returned to the field in 2022 with the intention of finishing the job.
In response to losing Army commit and star quarterback Hayden Oviatt to a broken foot in preseason, the Red Raiders handed the keys to Colin Donahue, who proceeded to throw for over 1,600 yards and 22 touchdowns, without surrendering a single interception.
Wamego will enter the postseason with Class 4A’s third-best scoring offense (42.8 ppg), third-best passing offense (233.9 yds/g), and fourth-best total offense (404.9 yds/g), wreaking havoc on opposing defenses week in and week out.
All of this is to say nothing of the best defense in Class 4A by all metrics, which holds opponents to under 6 points and just 103 yards per game, in stat lines that look like they were posted by a vengeful older brother in a game of Madden.
Despite all of this success, an undefeated record, and the #4 rank in Class 4A, the Raiders understand that the real work begins now, and are keeping their eyes fixed on the prize.
“Our guys understand that everybody is 0-0 right now and it’s win or go home,” Wamego head coach Weston Moody said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re undefeated or winless and everybody is going in with that mentality.”
First up on the Red Raider’s unfinished business tour is a Ulysses team that gritted through a brutal schedule, finishing with a deceptively poor 1-7 record despite boasting some real talent.
“Ulysses is very big up front and they’ll try to ground and pound to eat up the clock on you,” Moody said, “Defensively they want to load the box and play man-to-man coverage and all of those things present problems but it’s nothing new to our guys.”
Defensively Wamego has faced almost every trick in the book as team after team has tried to crack the code of their unit, and will be on their toes again this Friday against the Tigers.
“Everybody is going to throw curveballs at us and we have to be ready for everything,” he said. “We have to be really good on special teams and really good on situational defense. Right now it’s about getting healthy and formulating gameplans to put us in a position to win.”
On the flip side of that Wamego coin, the Raiders are still working to re-insert Hayden Oviatt into their offense after the senior worked tirelessly to get back on the field after rehabbing his broken foot.
“Incorporating Hayden back in the offense has been interesting,” he said. “We want to find ways to get him the football moving forward and it’s nice to have someone as versatile as him back in our offense.”
Wamego knows that they’ll be getting everyone’s best shot moving forward, but the residents of Boomtown have no intention of going quietly into the night, and the confidence and veteran leadership in the Raider locker room is matched by few across the state.
“We’ve taken a look around our bracket and these guys believe that they’re the best team in the state in 4A,” Moody said. “They feel like they’re the best team on the field every time we step out there and that’s going to be no different this week, next week, or any week after that. I have no doubt that our guys are going to leave it all out on the field whether we make it to the final or not.”
Kickoff between the Red Raiders and Tigers is set for 7 pm at Wamego High School with the winner advancing to the round of 16 to face either 4-4 Abilene or 3-5 Rose Hill.
For continuing coverage of the Raider’s playoff run stay tuned to the Little Apple Post.