Sunflower Preview Week-4-2018

9-20
ONW vs. LAW @ CBAC (LAW leads the series 5-3)
* The Chesty Lions enter week-4 with a narrow series lead over ONW.

This will be a fun game for both sides, as the two will be leading with new Head Coaches, again meeting league wide with the Sunflower changing Coaches. The Chesty Lions will look to meet again after not playing each other in 2016 and 2017.

9-21
ONE vs. Columbine, CO (Series tied 0-0)
* In a non-conference match up the Eagles will head to Colorado to face the Columbine High School Rebels. For the Eagles, this will be one of their longest road games in the history of the program. Locally, only Rockhurst and a small handful of other schools have traveled farther distances to play.

This game will be tough to gauge, as only in recent times have the Eagles truly played out-of-state competition. The Eagles managed to take out Rogers-Heritage on the road to start the 2014-15 season, but lost when it came time for them to host (RH ended up forfeiting the game later in the year).  Columbine has seen a similar amount of success as the Eagles in their area, consistently earning 10-win seasons since the turn of the decade. Both teams will enter the game undefeated and have seemed to not be fully tested by their previous competition.

LFS vs. SMW @ LFS (SMW leads the series 12-11)
* In a great match up of Bob Lisher, and Tim Callaghan, the Vikings lead the series by one game.

These two not only meet consistently in the regular season but many times in the 6A-East playoffs (of old) since 2008. While their 2017 week-1 game ended with a bad Vikings loss, a strong rebounding game by a young Vikings offense could prove to be a difference maker in the game. Like SM West, the Firebirds will bring an ample amount of Varsity experience in to this game in hoping to strike quickly for points on the scoreboard.

Three weeks in, the Vikings are still looking to tap in to the win column, falling behind winless Blue Valley North at the 13th spot in the west bracket/standings.

OWO vs. SMN @ CBAC (Series tied 0-0)
* In yet another first, the Owls and Indians will meet in Olathe West's inaugural season at the varsity level. This match-up will show two programs on polar opposites when it comes to tradition. The Indians are in their 97th season of Indians Football history within Johnson County while the Owls are still finding its feet in their first.

Both teams have struggled to find their first wins of the season, with SM North failing to muster a strong showing against three of the top teams of the league so far. West has found similar problems, but the team showed promise in a 27-37 loss to rival Olathe East last week. There are currently four win-less teams in the Sunflower League, at least one of those teams will escape this coming Friday.

GET vs. OEH @ GET (OEH leads the series 1-0)
* The Trailblazers, and Hawks will meet for only the second time ever in their small history.

While geographically very close to each other, they last met in a week-10 playoff game defeating the Trialblazers 19-7 in 2013, and will now meet again in their first ever conference game. These two, including Olathe South can and will build on their game history in seasons to come with the Trailblazers addition to the Sunflower League.

SMS vs. OSF @ SMS (OSF leads the series 10-8)
* Rare... How rare? While these two have meet 18 times since 1989, both programs have been off of each others radar from 2014 to 2017 (4 seasons). The Falcons are 9-1 in their last 10 against the struggling Raiders who have been and continue to rebuild their identity.

This game for the Raiders can be very beneficial as much as it was for the Cougars in the previous week pulling off a late win in overtime.

Currently on a three game win streak, playing a tough Falcons squad will prove to be a real test on the gridiron including SM East the following week.


SNW vs. SME @ SMN (SNW leads the series 25-22)
* In a change of pace, the Cougars will face the Lancers, as SME has been a thorn in the Cougars side since arriving in 2009. Entering in to this game, the Cougars have lost 11 straight dating back to the arrival of former Head Coaches Chip Sherman (5-0), and Dustin Delaney (6-0).

Justin Hoover will want to see his Lancers off to a quick start as they have in recent memory lauded points on the scoreboard in less than three minutes of time on the 1Q game clock. This has been a common denominator of the lopsided play with a very experienced Lancer offensive line and a strong QB presence in SR Andy Maddux.