By Toriano Porter Special to The Lee's Summit Journal
Posted: October 22, 2011 - 12:40 AM

Marcus Strickland and his Lee's Summit West teammates had a simple goal against Suburban Middle Six Conference and Class 5 District 9 opponent Ruskin.

Start fast and finish strong was the calling card and Strickland and the Titans were dialed in, overwhelming the visiting Eagles 45-0 Friday behind 116 rushing yards and two touchdowns from the senior running back.

"We're fine tuning everything," Strickland said. "Like Coach (Royce) Boehm always says we wanna come out fast and make sure that everything is right and everything is good so when we go into the playoffs we're hitting on all cylinders. That's what we're trying to do.

"We came out real fast and after the 21-0 lead (Ruskin) didn't want to play anymore. So, we gotta do that every week."

Said Boehm, the Titans head coach who saw his defending Class 5 champions improve to 8-1 overall on the season, claim an unbeaten Middle Six title at 5-0, and go to 2-0 in district play: "We have to keep the foot on the pedal. We have to start fast and finish fast. And that's exactly what these kids are answering to."

A week after laying a 21-point first quarter on Lee's Summit to open district play, the Titans repeated the trend against the Eagles with a three touchdown advantage after the first 12 minutes of play.

Strickland scored both of his touchdowns after Jamone Boyd opened scoring with a 6-yard run with 5 minutes, 21 seconds left in the first quarter.

Boyd would add another score on a 9-yard run at the 8:27 mark of the second quarter. The score preceded Luke Knott's 14-yard scoring pass to Shaquille Harrison.

Sophomore quarterback Thomas Ganaden scored on a 21-yard run in the third quarter and senior Darik Geha kicked 25-yard field goal to account for the Titans' final points.

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