On the hottest night of the year some of Kansas City’s finest high school football players got to take the field one last time as their decorated careers came to an end in the 2022 BeYOUnion.com Missouri vs. Kansas All-Star game at Turner.
And it was the Missouri All-Stars who put on a show both offensively and defensively as they defeated the Kansas All-Stars 32-15.
“From day one the goal for them was to go out and win the football game,” Missouri All-Star coach Justin Hamilton said. “They knew that coming in, but they also knew we were going to put ourselves in situations to win the football game.”
The Kansas All-Stars, led by Shawnee Mission South standout Mason Close, opened the scoring with a 6-yard run to give Kansas an early 7-0.
After the early touchdown, Hamilton told his team to just keep playing — especially on the defensive side of the ball.
The Missouri defense listened to its coach and was able to come up with a huge stop after Pleasant Hill’s Zach Redwine muffed a punt inside his own 10-yard line.
Three plays later, Missouri got on the board as Oak Park quarterback Ty Clemens connected with Lee’s Summit North’s Devin Blayney for a 75 yard touchdown to give Missouri an 8-7 lead.
Missouri extended its lead to 15-7 earlier in the second quarter as Clemens found Redwine streaking down the seam wide open for an 85-yard touchdown.
“They (the touchdowns) were designed that way,” Hamilton said. “We had to scramble a little bit, and change a little bit. Ty did a great job. That’s why he started tonight, he did the best job running our offense all week in practice. We trusted him and he went out there and made some big plays.”
Missouri put the game out of reach midway through the third quarter as Park Hill South’s Lucas Oitker found Kearney’s K.J. Smith on broken pass play for a 31-yard touchdown, giving Missouri a comfortable 22-7 lead. Missouri Would push the lead to 32-7 after a 29-yard field goal by Lafayette County’s Kyzer Gann-Vega and a 39-yard TD run by Raytown’s Zahmari Gary.
Kansas scored the final points of the game on a 25-yard TD pass from Lawrence’s Truman Juelsgaard to DeSoto’s Ethan Schutlze with 4:01 left in the game.
Clemens led all passers with 179 yards on 4 of 7 passing. Oitker totaled 73 yards on the ground to go along with his touchdown pass.
