Photo Credit: Lori Habiger/Center Stage Photography 
In one of the area’s top games of the weekend, previously unbeaten Kansas Class 6A power Gardner-Edgerton played hard and played fast in bolting out to a 14-0 lead on Kansas three-time defending Class 5A state champion Mill Valley on Homecoming.
The Jaguars took a shot to the chin, shook it off and then went to work, scoring the final 35 points in a 35-14 triumph halfway through the 2022 season.
“I’ll give all of the credit in the world to Gardner-Edgerton,” Mill Valley head coach Joel Applebee said after his squad wrapped up its fourth win of the season to no losses in workman like fashion. “They’re a well-coached team. They play very hard. They play very fast. They presented us with a lot of different challenges tonight.
“But I thought our kids responded very, very well, obviously, getting down 14. They’re going to learn a lot from this.”
Trailblazer fullback Dawson Kindler, who led all rushers with 122 yards and two scores on 25 carries, delighted the home white out crowd with a 63-yard burst on the game’s opening drive to set up his one-yard scoring plunge. The possession took nine plays, traveled 86-yards and took four-minutes, four-seconds off the clock, playing keep away from the Hayden Jay-led Jaguar offense.
The Jaguars did stop Gardner-Edgerton on downs at Mill Valley’s 18-yard line on its next possession when Elder was sacked. But disaster struck for Mill Valley when Jay, who threw for 162 yards and ran for 82 more, mishandled the snap on Mill Valley’s first play of the drive and Ozzy Poage recovered the ball on the Jaguar 13 for Gardner-Edgerton.
Six plays later, Kindler earned his second score of the evening with another one-yard plunge just four seconds into the second quarter.
Mill Valley made quick work of a long field on its next possession, driving 89 yards in six plays to get on the scoreboard on Hayden Jay’s 43-yard strike to Tate Nekola with just a little over nine minutes left in the opening half to cut the deficit in half.
The Trailblazers drove to Mill Valley’s 40 on their next possession but had to punt from there. The Jaguars took over at their own 3. Ten plays and 97 yards later, Mill Valley tied the game at 14-14 on Jay’s five-yard run.
Following Randy Singleton’s return to the 21 for Gardner-Edgerton, and a pair of Kindler runs, Jaguar defensive back Dylan Massey picked off an Elder pass and raced 37 yards for Mill Valley’s first lead of the contest with 2:10 left in the opening half.
Twenty-two seconds later, Jaguar linebacker Noah Coy picked up an errant Gardner-Edgerton pitch and returned it to the Trailblazer 27. Jay obliged the Jaguar defender by finding Hayes Miller open in the left corner of the end zone to put Mill Valley up 28-14 at intermission.
Mill Valley added a score late in the third quarter when Jay hit Tristan Baker for a 21-yard strike that put the game out of reach.
“We need to know where we need to be,” Applebee said of playing big games down the stretch. “We need to play fast every play and then we need to carry out our jobs with intention while playing very fast. This was very good for us tonight because they made us do that because, again, they’re a very well coached team.”
Mill Valley will try to improve to 5-0 next week when the Jaguars host Olathe South. It won’t get any easier for the Trailblazers (3-1) when they travel to take on Olathe North.
