Sports

Despite falling behind early, and their offense having the ball for only a minute- and-a-half in the 1st quarter, the Gardner Edgerton High School football team found their offensive and defensive momentum and rumbled to a 42-21 victory over Shawnee Mission East in the first round of the Kansas 6A Football State Championship Playoff Friday night at Gardner Edgerton District Activities Center.

This past Saturday, Nov. 5, the Blazer cheerleaders traveled to Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Missouri to compete with the hopes of earning a bid to high school cheer nationals in Florida in February. These girls have worked hard since June for this opportunity; all while continuing to cheer for the Gardner Edgerton High School sports teams, making school spirit banners, performing in assemblies and participating in community events to help paint the school in a positive light. They’ve overcome adversity in the form of multiple injuries and illnesses yet everything came together in a beautiful way yesterday.

This week capped off the end of a great season for Trailblazer Cross Country. The Blazer boys team participated in the KSHSAA 6A State Championship at Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence. The race started extremely fast and saw a decades old 5k course record shattered with the winning time in boys 6A (Senior Wyatt Haughton of Shawnee Mission East) at 14:59.65.

The Gardner Edgerton Scholars’ Bowl team competed in their first tournament, Tuesday, Oct. 25 in Bonner Springs. They started out in pool play with two pools of nine teams. Three team members are brand new to Scholars’ Bowl this year.

Despite penalty and turnover woes that slowed their offensive attack in the 1st half, the Gardner Edgerton High School football team rebounded nicely in the 2nd half, flashing a multi-pronged onslaught that dominated host Olathe East and sent the Hawks to a 41-14 defeat at College Boulevard Activities Center on Friday night. The win was the second in a row for the Trailblazers and improved their overall record to 5-2 with one regular-season game to go. After the game, Blazer head coach Jesse Owen credited his offensive and defensive lines with taking control of the game after a lackluster 1st half.

On Saturday, most of the Blazer XC Squad wrapped up their season with some exciting performances on a beautiful Fall morning at KU’s Rimrock Farm XC Course. On the girls team side-10 Blazer’s dropped Rimrock Course PRs and two Blazers, Frosh Olivia Walion (21:33) and Natalie Roberts (24:56) dropped season PRs on one of the most challenging courses in Midwest.

The Blazer Boys continue on to State XC in Lawrence: On Saturday morning, the Blazer Regional XC squads competed in the toughest 6A Regional in the State of Kansas at Johnson County Community College hosted by Olathe East. The Blazer Boys took to the course first and ran a dominant and impressive race putting our top 5 runners in the top 20 and scoring 71 points. The Blazer boys were bested only by Olathe East to bring home a second place Regional Runner-Up trophy. The Blazers placed 6th, 13th, 14th, 18th, and 20th with Junior Parker Walion leading the charge for the Trailblazers with a 16:41 4th place finish in 20-30 mph winds. The boys put three runners under 17 minutes and ran quite well as a pack to hold off Olathe South and Olathe West who were also looking for those coveted top three spots. Only three teams (Olathe East, GEHS, and Olathe South) move on to the State XC Championship at KU’s Rimrock Farm next Saturday. Congratulate Parker Walion 4th, Nick Kilonzo 14th, Andrew Leach 15th, Aidan Scherman 18th, Jackson Elsey, 20th, Cade Halton 23rd, and Robert Falkner 31st for one of the best Regional performances in Blazer XC History. THE BLAZERS RETURN TO THE STATE MEET FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW and 4th TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY. The boys finished 3rd/14 teams in the Sunflower League, 2nd/9 teams in the Olathe 6A Regional... the their work is not done yet...State XC has 5 teams fighting for the podium and your Trailblazers are in the mix. Wish them luck this week as GEHS sends these boys to run a tight race against Olathe East, Shawnee Mission East, Garden City, Olathe South, and Lawrence Freestate. All of these teams are fighting for the top three podium spots on Saturday--it is going to be quite a race!