Washburn football: another championship
season

BY ED FELIEN

The Washburn football team looks like it’s coasting to its 12th consecutive conference title. The team has held on to the City Conference Championship Bell since 2001.

But it didn’t always look that easy. This was supposed to be building year. Most of the squad is made up of juniors, and Southwest looked like the favorite to finally beat Washburn this year.

Southwest was leading Washburn by two touchdowns in the middle of the fourth quarter. Dantavian Sears, the Southwest quarterback, threw an interception and Washburn quickly capitalized on it and scored a touchdown. On the next series of downs the Washburn defense hung tough, and they got the ball back with just minutes to play. The Southwest defense had been able to contain Jeff Jones’ running game, so Coach Giovan Jenkins went to the air. With little more than one minute left on the clock, quarterback Morley Mathewson threw a high pass to Noah Scarver and he scored, and Washburn won its Homecoming 19 to 18.

Giovan Jenkins has been head coach at Washburn since 2004, so he’s responsible for eight of those championship years. He has had an impressive record. His teams have won 57 games and lost only 19. He’s the student dean, and he graduated from Washburn High School.

With easy games for the end of the season against Roosevelt and North, Washburn looks certain to repeat as City Conference Champs for the 12th straight year.