The Kansas State Wildcats cruised to a 52-0 win over Bowling Green on Saturday in Manhattan.

K-State totaled more than 500 yards on offense. Receive Malik Knowles caught passes for a total of 99 yard and two touchdowns. He made a statement with his performance. “The season is still early, still have a lot more to go, a lot more to show.”

Skylar Thompson threw for 151 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the victory. James Gilbert led the K-State rushing attack with 103 yards and two touchdowns. Jordan Brown, Harry Trotter and Joe Ervin rushed for one touchdown apiece.

K-State is off to a 2-0 start after the win over Bowling Green and Nicholls State one week ago. Kansas State defensive tackle Trey Dishon said he thinks the Wildcats have proven that they are a  contender. “We love to play the game that’s the big thing I think you can see that, especially in the stands, is that everybody’s flying, everybody has great energy. The big thing now is as captains we need to really tone into the detail of ‘hey we’re playing a contender, we’re about to get into the heart of our schedule stuff like that’.”

Bowling Green never got their offense going, totaling 140 yards with just five first downs.

Kansas State rested their starters mot of the second half. They will play at Mississippi State next Saturday.

Friday night high school football results:

–Junction City 48 Hays 30

–Emporia 17 Washburn Rural 6

–Chase County 58 Herington 14

–Marysville 34 Chapman 22

–Riley County 41 Rock Creek 34

–Hayden 55 Topeka West 8

–Seaman 56 Highland Park 6

–Topeka High 44 Shawnee Heights 7

–Burlington 46 Council Grove 20

–Clay Center 29 Abilene 0

–Manhattan 41 Olathe Northwest 7

–Solomon 46 Rural Vista 0

–Wamego 41 Concordia 12

–Bennington 34 Wakefield 8

The Fort Riley Middle School Troopers lost to Clay Center in 7th and 8th grade football on Thursday.

Clay Center won the 7th grade game 36-8 and the 8th grade game 48-0.

Coach Bob Shefelton said the Troopers worked hard and it was a learning experience. Both Fort Riley Middle School teams travel to Marysville next Thursday.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jordy Mercer fired up his teammates and helped them end to another skid in a sorry season.

Mercer put the Tigers ahead with their third home run of the fourth inning, and Detroit overcame a three-run deficit in a victory for the first time this year by beating the Kansas City Royals 6-4 Thursday.

“That excited the dugout,” Detroit manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We played pretty good baseball in this series.”

Detroit, which stopped a four-game losing streak, is a big league-worst 41-97 and Kansas City at 51-90 also is on pace for more than 100 losses.

Kansas City built a 3-0 lead in the second against Matthew Boyd (8-10) when Whit Merrifield hit a two-run single and scored on Adalberto Mondesi’s double. Merrifield had four hits, one shy of his career high.

Harold Castro started the comeback with an RBI single in the third, and Detroit took a 4-3 lead in the fourth off Glenn Sparkman (3-11) when Brandon Dixon and Dawel Lugo homered on consecutive pitches with one out and Mercer went deep with two outs for the Tigers’ first three-homer inning this year.

“We’ve talked about the importance of tack-on runs, and we just couldn’t do it,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “We couldn’t tack on runs until the eighth inning. We tacked on one, and I was hoping that one run would be big. It looked like it was starting to loom big in the ninth.”

Pinch-hitter Willi Castro had a two-run single in the sixth off Josh Staumont. Castro replaced Mercer, who left because of a bruised right wrist. An X-ray was negative.

Cheslor Cuthbert had a run-scoring grounder in the eighth against Bryan Garcia.

Boyd allowed three runs and 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings, and Joe Jiménez got three outs for his fifth save in six chances.

“I think he controlled the game,” Gardenhire said of Boyd. “He got into a little bit of a groove. I think he made some minor adjustments. The first couple of innings his breaking ball was going across the zone. He started getting it to go down. Once he did that, he was fine.”

Sparkman gave up four runs and seven hits in four innings.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jorge Soler hit his 39th homer to set a Royals team record Tuesday night, and manager Ned Yost thought that might really open the floodgates for the breakout slugger.

Relieved to have the record in his pocket, a relaxed Soler stretched his total to 40 with a 450-foot shot Wednesday night, and the Kansas City Royals beat the Detroit Tigers 5-4.

The drive left Soler’s bat at 115 mph, Soler’s hardest-hit homer of the season and the 10th hardest homer in the majors this season.

“Getting No. 40 is really important. But really, I was really happy to get 30,” he said through an interpreter. “It felt like I’ve hit it like that a bunch of times.”

Yost said he thought Soler had tensed up recently with the record in reach.

“He’s back to being himself,” Yost said. “There’s a little relief for me. I wanted him to get it. Now every home run from now on he’ll break the record. I like that. I’m anxious to see how many he can hit.”

Hunter Dozier and Alex Gordon had three hits each for the Royals, who matched their season-best winning streak at four.

The Royals are the last team in baseball history to have a player reach 40 home runs in a season. Prior to Tuesday, Mike Moustakas held the club record with 38 in 2017.

Jakob Junis (9-12) gave up four runs and seven hits over seven innings for Kansas City.

“I had a little better command (late),” Junis said. “I started to throw my slider for a strike, which helped, and then just getting quick outs. They were aggressive. Getting some ground balls, some double plays helped a lot, too. Just staying on the attack.”

Ian Kennedy pitched the ninth for his 26th save in 30 chances. He blew his first save in 15 chances Tuesday night against Detroit, but he was perfect Wednesday.

“When Ian walked by (before the game), I said, ‘How are you doing?'” Yost said. “He said, ‘I’m doing fine.’ I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, I just need to locate my fastball better.’ I said, ‘Bingo. Yes you do.’

“Boy, he sure did tonight. He was fantastic. That’s as crisp as I’ve seen him in a while.”

Edwin Jackson (3-9) allowed four runs and nine hits in five innings for the Tigers.

“They put the ball in play,” Detroit manager Ron Gardenhire said. “They just found enough holes out there, and they really made him work. His pitch count went from somewhere around 50 pitches after three innings, and next time you look up he’s at 86 or 87. They really made him work the last couple innings.”

Detroit scored three runs in the second inning on four consecutive hits. Christin Stewart led off with a single, Jeimer Candelario doubled and Harold Castro drove in both runners with a double. Castro then scored on a single by Dawel Lugo.

After threatening in the third, the Royals scored twice in the fourth. Dozier and Gordon singled leading off, and Ryan McBroom, who made his major league debut Tuesday, collected his first career RBI with a single that scored Dozier and sent Gordon to third. Gordon then scored on a wild pitch.

The Royals added two more in the fifth. Soler’s blast off the Royals Hall of Fame in left field tied it. Dozier then tripled off the base of the wall in left center and scored on Gordon’s infield hit.

“I thought we swung the bats pretty good,” Gardenhire said. “We got a little unlucky on some line drives right at people. But we were in the game. We had a chance. We just couldn’t come up with one big hit.”

Adalberto Mondesi hit a two-out single in the sixth to make it 5-3.

Miguel Cabrera’s RBI single just inside the line in the eighth cut the lead to one.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jorge Soler got Kansas City going with a record-breaking home run before Ryan O’Hearn ended the game with one swing of his bat.

Soler eclipsed the franchise home run mark with his 39th homer of the season and O’Hearn hit a pinch-hit, game-ending home run in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Royals to a 6-5 win over the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night.

O’Hearn sent the first pitch he saw from Zac Reininger (0-1) in the ninth inning over the fence in right field after a seesaw final three innings.

“First-pitch heater, out over the plate, I just freaking blacked out, I don’t know. I swung hard and it was good,” O’Hearn said. “That was awesome.”

Tigers’ starter Daniel Norris grooved Soler a 2-2 fastball in the third inning and the Royals’ slugger didn’t miss. The three-run shot broke a tie with Mike Moustakas, who set the previous record with 38 home runs in 2017.

“You know it’s coming, but you still want to see it,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “It’s such a tough game, you just never know. You don’t know what could happen that can derail your attempt at breaking a record so he’s got it now. Every home run from here on out is going to break the record and that’s cool.”

The home run also gave Soler 100 RBIs on the season, becoming the first Royal to cross the century mark since Eric Hosmer in 2016.

“There’s a lot of emotions going on right now,” Soler said. “Maybe when I get home, but right now, it still hasn’t sunk in.”

Mike Montgomery was solid once again, allowing one run on six hits in 5 2/3 innings. Montgomery has now allowed one earned run or fewer in four of his last five starts and has a 2.10 ERA and 30 strikeouts in 30 innings over that span.

Whit Merrifield had three hits, upping his season total to 176, just one back of Boston’s Rafael Devers for the MLB lead.

The Tigers scored four runs from the seventh inning on to twice rally from deficits. Brandon Dixon put Detroit up 4-3 in the eighth inning with a sacrifice fly to score Jeimer Candelario, then tied the game in the ninth on Ronny Rodriguez’s single, but Alex Gordon threw out Willi Castro at home to end the inning.

Gordon tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, legging out an infield single and Soler put the Royals up 5-4, racing home on a wild pitch.

“It got crazy there at the end,” Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We had our chances and didn’t make enough pitches.”

Ian Kennedy (2-2) blew his fourth save of the season, but got the win thanks to O’Hearn.

Soler’s home run was the only blemish on Norris, who threw just three innings because of pitching limits set by Detroit pitching coach Rick Anderson. Norris has thrown exactly three innings in five consecutive starts now.

Playing in his first major league game since June 13, Grayson Greiner was at the center of the Tigers’ offense from the No. 9 hole in the lineup. He laced an RBI single in the third inning to put Detroit up 1-0, then scored on Victor Reyes’ RBI double in the seventh inning to bring Detroit with in one, 3-2.

Greiner finished with three hits and Reyes had a career-high had four hits, including two doubles, for his fifth straight multi-hit game. Reyes is hitting .591 (13 for 22) in those games.

“I’m feeling very good. I’m trying to make contact to the middle of the field. I’ve been successful at that,” Reyes said through an interpreter. “I’ve been using the videos to evaluate the pitchers. Basically I’m focused on hitting the ball to the middle of the field.”