Photo Credit: Nick Smith/PrepsKC 
The Louisburg football team had a few big goals heading into the 2023 season and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to accomplish two of them on Friday against Spring Hill. With a 35-21 win over the Broncos, the Wildcats wrapped up an undefeated regular season and won the Frontier League title.
“It feels awesome. Starting in June with weights, it was our goal to be undefeated league champs,” Louisburg quarterback Declan Battle said. “It feels like it flew by so fast. We’re already out here and we got it done. It’s on to next week with the playoffs, so here we go.”
Battle more than did his part against the Broncos with two rushing touchdowns and two passing touchdowns. After a scoreless first quarter, Battle found pay dirt on runs of 1 and 15 yards and threw a 61-yard touchdown strike to Myles Vohs in the second quarter to power Louisburg to a 21-0 halftime lead.
Vohs was one of three Wildcats that had at least one catch of 30-plus yards. Running back Ashton Moore corralled a 30-yard catch on a big 4th and 5 play in the third quarter just after Spring Hill had made it a 21-7 game. Moore then caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from battle two plays later to put Louisburg up 28-7. The Louisburg running back also scored on a 1-yard run in the fourth quarter.
“Ashton is a grinder. He’s a horse, so we try to get him the rock,” said Louisburg coach Andrew Harding of Moore. “We try to get him the ball as much as we can. Generally good things happen when he’s got the ball in his hands.”
Along with having a versatile running back in Moore, Battle had a big target that he went to early and often in Caden Caplinger. Caplinger caught six passes for 90 yards all in the first half.
“He’s been a weapon,” said Battle of Caplinger. “He goes up and gets the ball when he needs to. I really appreciate him doing that.”
The Louisburg defense also had a very tough task at hand in slowing down a Spring Hill offense that was averaging 44.3 points per game coming in. The Wildcats were able to hold standout running back Colton Mckanna in check for much of the first half and got interceptions for Wyatt Holland and Brody McGreer.
“We talked about being nasty all week. They were way bigger than us across the board up front, so we knew we had to get nasty,” Harding said. “I thought we did a pretty good job of that and rallied to the football. Overall, we tackled pretty well.”
Mckanna wasn’t about to let the Broncos go down without a fight, though. He rattled off three straight runs of 14, 17 and 19 yards to cap the Broncos’ first drive of the second half and put Spring Hill on the board.
Spring Hill quarterback Tyson Beashore also rushed for a 1-yard touchdown and threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Jackson in the second half, but the 21-point halftime deficit was too much for the Broncos to overcome. The Broncos finished the regular season with a record of 6-2.
