Game of the Week: Maize vs. Goddard

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The start of the high school football season in Kansas is just days away, and KSN Sports is heading to Goddard for Week 1’s Game of the Week.

The Lions are set to face off against the Maize Eagles. The two matched up in the first round of the playoffs last year, and Maize was able to pull off the upset en route to an unlikely playoff run that made a two-win regular season completely irrelevant.

Maize head coach Gary Guzman talked about what it’s going to take to beat Goddard for the second-straight time.

“I mean, we don’t really know much about them,” Guzman said. “We haven’t really had a chance to see them. The first game is always a tough game. Just because you don’t know, you don’t have the film on them. You don’t know what they’re doing.

“You know, they run the same thing that they ran last year. We’re going to assume that they’re still doing the same things, but we have no idea. So game one is always just trying to figure things out. Our kids have been playing well. They’ve been practicing well. They’ve been working hard. They got a lot of energy. I mean, I’m excited to see what they can do on the field.”

On the other sideline, Goddard head coach Tommy Beason is leading the Lions again in 2024. The team is looking for their third-straight winning season and they’d like to get this season started off on the right foot with a win on Friday.

“They’re a really good team, and they’ve had a tremendous amount of success in the last ten years,” Beason said. “They have been one of the winningest programs in our area in the last decade. Coach Guzman is a longtime coach and a longtime friend of mine. I’m excited to go compete against them. They were they were our nemesis last year and knocked us out of the playoffs, and now we get a little bit of an opportunity for redemption to start a fresh new year. We’re hoping that we’ve grown a lot in the last nine months and we’re going to find out on Friday.”

Maize and Goddard will kick off at 7 p.m. on Friday from Goddard.

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