It hasn’t been close for 16 quarters of Basehor-Linwood High football so far this season.

Heading into Friday’s Homecoming contest against Independence, the Bobcats had outscored their previous three opponents by 173-0 and allowed less than a yard per play.

Scary to think that after their fourth game, those numbers are even better as the Bobcats dominated the visiting Bulldogs from the Star Spangled Banner until the final whistle in a 50-0 rout.

BLHS (4-0) was led by junior quarterback Dylan Mussett finished 8-for-15 with 103 yards passing with a touchdown and a pick and added 28 yards rushing , while a stable of running backs led by Nolan Ford (83 yards), Marlon McDaniel (31 yards) and Matt McKnight (21 yards) paced a relentless ground game.

″(The large number of running backs) is a lot nicer because get some kids more breaks when they need it,” Mussett said. “We have some 2-way starters so it’s nice to have guys get reps.”

Yet, despite this dominance, BLHS head coach Rod Stallbaumer knows that this past month of games is not the ideal way to test his squad.

“I hate these kind of games,” Stallbaumer said. “It’s good, we got a lot of kids in and it should be a good learning experience, because I think they have a taste for varsity football and they might realize what they have to do when the next time comes around.

“It’s going to get a lot tougher when you get into the heart of the league schedule and districts, so it gets tougher. I think this group and the experience they had last year going in to a similar situation will help them. I really like their focus so far and they haven’t really let down for these types of games, but we have to be ready. It speaks well for our senior leadership, especially those defensive guys, they are a good group.”

Basehor took little time to get going as it took the opening drive of the contest to pay dirt scoring on a 5-yard run by Matt McKnight to go up 7-0 just north of the 9-minute mark of the first quarter.

They then doubled the edge on a 15-yard run by Dylan Mussett to go up 14-0 only five minutes into the game.

The coolest play of the game occurred shortly after that when a Mussett pass was picked off and run back into Bobcat territory, but BLHS senior lineman Zach White stripped the Independence defensive back as he brought him down to give the hosts the ball right back.

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