BonnerSprings.com

Topeka Seaman will be in familiar territory this week when the Class 5A football state playoffs begin. The Vikings qualified for the fifth straight season.

It is a position that the Bonner Springs Braves thought they had an excellent chance of being in at the beginning of the season before dropping their last three games in district play.

Seaman (3-6) put the final nail in the Braves’ coffin with a 43-17 thumping on Friday night.

BSHS ends its season with a 4-5 record.

The score tells of a blowout, but in reality, Bonner fell apart and allowed Seaman to score three non-offensive touchdowns.

With under a minute remaining in the first quarter Seaman got on the board with a Tyler Lutz 23-yard field goal. Just minutes later the Vikings took advantage of a BSHS turnover when quarterback Robbie Rea found Jacob Kottman for a 6-yard touchdown pass to stretch the score to 10-0.

One minute after that, Garret Roberts picked up a fumble by Jonathan Walker and ran it back 46 yards for another touchdown. Just like that it was 17-0 in favor of Seaman.

BSHS got back in the game with a touchdown hookup from Brandon Eastland to Chris Smith for 16 yards, followed by a Chance Crawford 33-yard field goal. It looked as if the score would remain 17-10 heading into halftime, but Seaman took advantage of good field position. Spencer Vanderborgart punched in a 6-yard touchdown with 46 seconds left to extend the score to 23-10.

The score remained the same until late in the third quarter. Seaman’s Cody Ratner recovered a blocked punt in the end zone to make the score 30-10, and it looked like the game may be out of reach for BSHS, but the Braves struck back quickly.

On the ensuing possession, Eastland hit Walker for 39 yards and a touchdown to shrink the deficit to 13 heading into the fourth quarter. It was the closest that they would get.

Seaman dominated the fourth quarter and blew open the game, ending any hope of a comeback. Rea had a 36-yard touchdown scamper and Jason McCinty recovered a fumble in the end zone with 30 seconds left in the game to make the score 43-17.

“You’ve got to be able to take care of the ball if you want to stay in the game,” BSHS coach Lew Kasselman said. “We didn’t do that today, we turned it over too many times, and that is why we were not in the game late.”

The Braves outgained the Vikings by a total of 89 yards, 289 to 200, but were unable to run the ball with any consistency when they needed to — a common theme in their five losses this year. Their passing yardage was near 200 yards, but that was due in part to the Braves having to throw almost every down in an effort to come from behind.

“We missed some opportunities early on, but really, we got man-handled up front,” Kasselman said. “We did not get any movement and had a hard time dealing with their speed on defense.”

Kasselman was proud of his team’s effort in a game that had no postseason implications regardless of the outcome.

“We had some bad things happen early on and we could have given up,” he said, “but like I told the kids, ‘our team fights hard until the end,’ and that is the way they always play.”

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