By Anthony Gorges
JC Post
The Junction City Blue Jays defeated the Wichita Heights Falcons by a score of 27-18 on Friday night at Blue Jay Stadium in the first round of the playoffs.
Junction City set the tempo early, scoring on the opening possession of the game on a 10-yard touchdown run from Michael Boganowski. The Blue Jays never looked back and never trailed in the game despite Wichita Heights keeping the game close.
The Blue Jays defense gave up three touchdowns on the night, two of them rushing and one of them through the air. Junction City stopped Heights on two different two-point conversion attempts. The Falcons also missed a PAT as well.
The turning point in the game was late in the second quarter when Junction led 7-6, Brock Bazan punted the football away. As the ball was in the air, it hit a Heights player on the helmet. The Blue Jays recovered it and then scored on the next play, on a three yard touchdown run from Griffon Bohanon.
Two other key plays in the game came on two long punt returns, one from Losiah Autry and the other from Boganowski, which both led to short fields and touchdowns for the Blue Jays.
Junction City head football coach Randall Zimmerman expressed that his team played well, but there are still things to improve on if the Blue Jays want to make a deep run in the playoffs. "I am very, very pleased with the win," Zimmerman said. "I think our kids played really hard tonight."
Junction City improves to 6-3 on the season and will travel to Topeka next week to take on number one seed Washburn Rural in the second round of the playoffs.