7 September 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — For our second Game of the Week for 2023, we are staying here in Wichita with a fun matchup between the Wichita East Blue Aces and the Kapaun Mt. Carmel Crusaders.
Last week, the Crusaders had one of the most dominant season-opening performances in the state, dismantling Wichita South 72-14. Now, the Crusaders are ready for a challenging matchup against Wichita East.
“Can you say speed? East has it,” explained Crusaders head coach Weston Schartz. “They run, they run, and they run. They are quick, they run to the ball, and they have great athletes and a great coaching staff. They’re doing a fantastic job over there. It’s a game where we want to go out and see how are as a team and compete well. We’ve coached against Ene [Akpan] for a long time. We know what he’s going to do. It’s going to be two wills crashing Friday night.”
Speaking of Wichita East, they opened their season with a one-point road loss to a talented Topeka-Washburn Rural team, 26-25.
While the game didn’t go the way the team wanted to, they were able to come away with that matchup with plenty of lessons that they can apply to the rest of their season.
“Eliminate mistakes,” said Wichita East head coach Ene Akpan. “That’s the biggest thing, that’s the whole focus this week is just eliminating mistakes. Penalties, turnovers, missed tackles, those are the biggest key to the game.”
But they know they have an uphill climb against the 2nd ranked team in the 5A classification.
“I think it’s their running back, Omari Elias. He’s a strong, big kid, and we just have to go and gang tackle,” Akpan added. “The biggest thing about Kapaun is that they’re a disciplined team. We know what they’re going to run, they’re going to run at you, and you just got to stop them.”