Lincoln High

Lincoln - The Spartans students have been building and molding something special at East High. The size of the student body has grown in size and in participation at the games. The roar and they chant and they even change shirts at halftime. The student performance deserves the game ball because the football team was ready to go and with a 32 yard kickoff return and a 55 yard run the Spartans hit quickly and never looked back as they rolled the Links from Lincoln High 41-0. Sporting a new Martin the Spartan and a super leader, great cheerleading and the continued support of a super band the atmosphere at the Spartan homecoming was electric. Not since the late 70's have you been able to witness that much excitement at a Spartan game. One staff member said that the afternoon pep rally was something to witness.

Brandon Ell got things rolling for the Spartans with the 32 yard kickoff return and he had a great night with 2 more punt returns of 69 yards and 4 tackles for his efforts. Next play quarterback Bryce Bostwick took advantage of the truck hole created by his line and rambled in for the 55 yard scoring dash. Point after failed and the Spartans lead 6-0 with only :18 seconds gone in the first quarter. Lincoln High came back and used 11 plays to march down the field 37 yards before T.J. Gibbons stuffed a 4th and three play on the East 39 yard line. East gave the ball back to Lincoln High on a Bostwick interception to Dagan Worton. Worton returned the interception 26 yards back down to the East 35 yard line. Enter the Spartan defense again to save the day when Colton Wolinski forced a Links fumble by Nate Tromblee and Nick Grabowski was all over the recocovery. for the Spartans. Enter the offense and the Spartans struck hard fast with an Aaron Kilgore 39 yard romp up the middle and a Bostwick rush around left end for 36 yards and his second touchdown of the game. Bostwick also scored on the 2-point try and the Spartans lead 14-0 in the first quarter.

East had the ball to start the second quarter and a 12 play drive that consumed 59 yards and 5:50 of clock before it ended on the Lincoln High 15 yard line when a Bostwick fumble was recovered by the Links Say'yon Miller. Pete Meginnis halted the next Lincoln High drive with 3 of his 11 tackles on the series. With 4:44 left in the second quarter, Nick Masada intercepted a Dylan Flinn pass and the Spartan returned it 43 yards to the Lincoln High 12 yard line. Bostwick took care of the 12 yards by scoring over left tackle for his third touchdown of the game. Spartans took a 21-0 halftime lead to the locker room but, not before Drew Zobel intercepted another Flynn pass.

Lincoln High managed to chew up some clock on 7 plays to start the third quarter however, again the Spartan defense shut them down. With 6:45 to go in the third quarter, Justin Hill put on show for the Spartans. He broke for a Flynn pass and intercepted it in the end zone. He was bobbling the ball and didn’t make possession until the one yard line. The high school rules state that any pass intercepted in the end zone is an automatic touchback. His bobble allowed him to ramble 99 yards for record interception return to give the Spartans a 28-0 lead. Nick Grabowski decided he wanted his own highlight show for the Spartans when he feel on a Tromblee fumble the next series. The fumble recovery by Grabowski was his second of the game. East took advantage of recovery and marched 42 yards in 6 plays to put the Spartans up 35-0. Bostwick chewed up 48 yards of his 181 total yards on the drive before Kilgore rushed for the 1 yard touchdown.

With high school rules, the clock doesn't stop at this point and East was emptying the bench. Jimmy Wang came off the bench ready to play and contributed 55 yards on 6 scamper runs and a touchdown with :50 to go. Wang rushed around right end for a 9 yard touchdown and a 41-0 final score. Nick Kohler, Matt Hohensee, Aaron Bohl, S. Randazzo, Ethan Suhr, Eric Connor , Jordan Watteyne, Tyler Unruh, all came in for the Spartan defense on tackles to help preserve the shortened 4th quarter shutout of the Links. TC Kirkendall came up big for the Spartans when he filled in for the injured Devon Nash to record 7 tackles. Meginnis in addition to his lead leading tackles recorded two tackles behind the line of scrimmage and broke up a Flynn pass. The Spartan defense has 4 sacks on the game coming from tackles made by Kirkendall, Wolinski, Josh Hastreiter, Shur and Randazzo.

Overall the Spartans played a good balance game but, managed to turn the ball over 4 times on fumbles and interceptions. Penalties continue to plague East as they were penalized 10 times for 83 yards. Those problems will have to be shored up as they travel to Elkhorn next week.