How many points is a football team’s best player worth? A touchdown? Four points?
In pregame warmups prior to the start of the Class 1 District 2 championship at Grandview High School, Eagle senior Wyatt Keim was injured and unable to play against Van-Far High. A running back and leading tackler at linebacker, Keim is the unquestioned leader of a Grandview team steeped in senior leadership.
With the sudden shocking loss of Keim right before kickoff, Eagle coaches had to insert players into his positions that had little to no time to prepare.
Even without Keim, top-seeded Grandview (7-4) stood toe-to-toe with the Indians (No. 2) for four quarters. But after recovering an onside kick with less than a minute to play on Van-Far’s side of the field, Van-Far (7-4) kept Eagle senior quarterback Brendan Martin from throwing his third touchdown pass of the fourth quarter and held on for a 22-18 victory. The Eagles last won a district title in 1992.
Understandably, emotions were raw, not only because Keim couldn’t play in his final game after a stellar career, but because this senior class is passing the torch and leaves behind a lasting legacy. Keim declined to comment about his injury after the game.
First-year Grandview head coach Cory Hanger said he wasn’t going to put a point total on Keim’s absence.
“I don’t like playing that game, but I can tell you that Wyatt would have made a massive difference,” Hanger said. “The way our kids handled that situation – because Wyatt is the leader of our team – we have some amazing seniors and leaders on this team, but there is nobody like Wyatt. Watching him go down in pregame hurt a lot of kids and put some fear into some kids. But the way they responded to that adversity was awesome. Christian Volner (a sophomore) and Teddy Barrett (junior) had defensive roles. Max Moore (junior) had to move into a spot he hadn’t practiced all week.”
A three-year starter at QB, Martin threw two 30-yard TD passes to senior wide receiver Cam Brooks in the fourth quarter to keep the game’s outcome in the balance until Martin’s final throw.
Without Keim, the Indians were better suited to stop massive senior fullback Isaac Walker’s inside runs that have been so effective this year.
“Losing Wyatt last-second threw everything off,” Martin said. “Wyatt’s an all-around stud. We played football together for 12 years and he’s always been a big kid who can block, run and he’s fast. He can do everything. Not having him out there hurt our offense a little bit in every way. But I’ve got to give props to Christian Volner, he had to take (Keim’s) place 20 minutes before the game started and he did an awesome job. Our coaches kept everyone calm. That’s a credit to our program as a whole.”
The seven victories are the most games the Eagles have won since 2021. Grandview couldn’t finish playing the 2016 season and was relegated to a junior varsity schedule in 2017 because of attrition. Dave Dallas was hired as head coach and by the time he left after the 2021 season, and handed off to Jason Kimminau, the program was on stable ground and two years ago became part of the newly-formed Quad County Conference. Kimminau was the head coach for three years.
Having Keim as the centerpiece of such a large, talented group of seniors is the culmination of those efforts.
Despite his loss, the Eagles forced V-F to turn the ball over on downs on the game’s first series. Starting in Indian territory, Martin pitched to junior RB Brock Poole over left end and Poole finished Grandview’s first drive with a
21-yard TD run. The Eagles missed the PAT – they missed two PATs and one two-point conversion attempt – but led 6-0 with 8:35 left in the first.
Keim’s absence as a runner and blocker were sorely missed, as was his inside run stopping ability in the middle of the Grandview defense. Senior running backs Gaven Gaston (6-0, 180) and Evan Utterback (6-1, 215) kept banging away at a stout Eagle defense and on occasion found cracks that Keim might have filled.
With Grandview leading 6-0 in the first, Utterback gained 16 yards to move the ball onto the plus side of the field. Senior QB Kasen Christian (6-2, 160) gained 21 yards to the 17-yard line, and tied the game from 14 yards out with 5:04 left in the quarter. Gaston ran in the two-point conversion to give the Indians an 8-6 edge.
The two teams traded turnover on downs for the rest of the first, and in a scoreless second, Martin sailed a 46-yard pass to junior Brock Poole to the V-F 16, but the Eagles fumbled on the next play and Christian recovered.
On the first drive of the second half, Grandview marched to the Indian 41, but the inability to run against them forced another turnover on downs. V-F turned the field position around on its next possession and got to the Eagle 19 before senior linebacker Blake Brown recovered a fumble, one of three the Eagles recovered (Martin and junior DE Aaron Smith) in the second half.
Grandview wasn’t fumbling, but turnovers on downs are just as detrimental, and the Eagles gave the ball over to V-F on the first play of the fourth. Grandview’s inability to convert even short-yardage plays helped the Indians.
“Wyatt is without a doubt the best blocking running back I’ve ever seen,” Hanger said. “I’ve been around flex-bone teams for many years. He is the best blocker. People don’t see that on the stat sheet. They were stopping our inside run game so we had to change our offense to more of a spread style.”
On the next V-F drive, Gaston scored from 6 yards, the two-point conversion was good and the Indians led 16-6 with 9:29 left in the game. Martin tossed his first TD pass to Brooks with 7:31 left to make it 16-12.
With 4:30 left in the game, V-F was inside the Eagle 5, but the Indians fumbled and Martin recovered at the 13. Grandview’s offense stalled and V-F went up by 10 points again when Gaston split the Eagles down the middle for a 41-yard TD run with 2:03 to play.
Undeterred, Martin fired another TD pass to Brooks with 43 seconds left. Brooks wrestled the ball away from Indian DB Kaston Rhodes as the fell into the end zone. Grandview recovered the onside kick.
“It’s awesome seeing (Brooks) come this far,” Martin said. “Last year he struggled a little bit, and he’s done a great job.”
V-F hosts Hayti High (6-5) in the state quarterfinals on Saturday at 1 p.m.