KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Peyton Manning threw for 403 yards and five touchdowns, four of them to Eric Decker, and the Denver Broncos held off a furious rally to beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-28 Sunday and seize control of the AFC West.

Decker had eight catches for a career-high 174 yards for the Broncos (10-2), who moved a game clear of the Chiefs (9-3) in the division. With four games left, Denver also holds the tiebreaker by virtue of two wins over Kansas City in the last three weeks.

Jamaal Charles had 93 yards rushing for the Chiefs, and capped a 17-play drive with a 1-yard touchdown run with 6:32 left in the game to close within a touchdown.

After forcing a punt with 3:32 remaining, Kansas City used three long pass plays to move deep into Broncos territory. But Alex Smith’s pass to Dwayne Bowe in the end zone on fourth-and-4 with 1:45 left fell incomplete, allowing the Broncos to run out the clock.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) – Shane Southwell had 19 points and Thomas Gipson added 17 as Kansas State defeated Central Arkansas 87-54 in the first ever meetings between the schools.

DeShone McClure and Jalen Jackson both scored 12 points to pace the Bears (2-4), who are eligible for postseason play for the first time since their 2006 admission to the Division I ranks.

It was Kansas State’s (4-3) best offensive performance of the season, with a season-high in points and rebounds (52).

The performance on the glass was the best for the Wildcats since its Nov. 18, 2012 matchup against North Florida where they tallied 54 rebounds.

After opening on a 12-2 run, the Wildcats never saw their lead fall underneath double digits – and pushed it to as many as 23 points in the first half.

 

The Kansas State Wildcats won the Sunflower Showdown Saturday by defeating the Kansas Jayhawks 31-10 in Lawrence.

The Kansas State defense seemed to be able to come up with plays when the Wildcats needed them the most, whether it was a third down stop or recovering a timely turnover. The defense held KU to only 223 total yards offense on 74 plays.  That compares to K-State’s 368 total yards on 66 plays.

The KSU defense picked off four passes,  and recovered two fumbles. After the game Bill Snyder said that the Wildcats didn’t convert enough of the turnovers into points. “We had five or six turnovers.  Our defense played well throughout the course of the ball game. Field position was not in their favor because the offense didn’t move the ball because of the offense’s struggles.”

The Wildcats went up 14-0 in the first quarter scoring both by air and on the ground. The first scoring drive only took three plays, and covered 54 yards. The drive was capped by a 35-yard pass from Jake Waters to Zach Trujillo.

On their next scoring drive K-State established the running game, going 67 yards in four plays. John Hubert finished the drive for the Wildcats on a 21-yard rushing touchdown.

After struggling last week against Oklahoma to run the ball Hubert exploded in the game rushing for 220 yards and one touchdown on 30 carries. “I just said to myself, every little crease, every little hole I’m going to get it, square shoulders and run down field and try and break the tackles and run hard,” Hubert said following the game. He moved into second place in school history in career rushing with 2,913.

On the next drive the Wildcats only needed three plays and 14 seconds to find the end zone again. Waters connected with Glenn Gronkowski for a 29 yard touchdown pass only ten seconds into the second quarter, Patterson’s extra point was good putting K-State up 21-0.

KU’s offense then came alive in the second quarter putting together two scoring drives resulting in ten points.

In the third quarter K-State’s offense struggled but once again the Wildcats defense was able to help by picking off Jake Heaps, which in turn led to a Wildcat scoring drive of five plays for 38 yards that Waters finished with a 15 yard touchdown run with 3:10 to play in the 3rd quarter.

Waters said the takeaways by the defense were huge,”When the defense is doing that it gives us such a great advantage. We didn’t capitalize as well as we should have today, but for our bowl game if they do that we should be in pretty good shape.”

The Wildcats tacked on a field goal in the fourth quarter to secure the final margin of victory.

K-State was able to control that lead throughout to win their fifth straight and move to 7-5 on the season. The Wildcats will now wait to find out what bowl game they will play in. Bowl Selection Sunday is December 8th.

There were five winning entries in the 18th annual Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce Parade presented by 1420-KJCK, Power Hits 97.5 , and Country 103.5.

They included:

–the Mayor’s Award to the 24th Transportation FRG

–Chamber of Commerce Award to Dehart Plumbing

–Founders Award to the Humboldt Creek Four-H Club

–Youth Award to the Girl Scouts

–County Commission Award to JC Naz.

There were more than 60 entries in the parade.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) – Shortly after Charlie Weis was hired as the coach at Kansas, he sat in his office overlooking Memorial Stadium and asked a couple of people huddled around his desk a simple question.

“Why has Kansas State had so much success and Kansas has not?” he said.

It was hard to tell whether the question was earnest or rhetorical. After all, the Wildcats were coming off a Cotton Bowl appearance and the Jayhawks had just fired Turner Gill, and there was little disputing that Kansas State was the state’s alpha program when it came to football.

Fast-forward two years and Weis is still trying to come up with answers. But he may have at least identified why the Wildcats have routinely beaten up on the neighbors to the east.

“I’ve learned that they have done a better job of magnifying the importance of the game,” Weis said. “Let’s forget about the game itself. Let’s talk about the attitude that’s permeated from the top on down, the significance of the game, and it’s for several reasons.

Like the split among the state’s fans, often within the same household.

“You’re not playing just for your football team and your student body,” Weis said. “It’s for all those people who go into work on Monday and have an opportunity to take shots, and most of the time we’ve been receiving the shots. It would be really nice to walk into work on Monday, for most people, and be able to fire shots instead of taking them.”

Kansas State (6-5, 4-4 Big 12) has won four straight in the series, and is 16-4 in the series since 1993. Bill Snyder is 17-4 against the Jayhawks (3-8, 1-7), including 7-3 in Lawrence.

In fact, Snyder has put such emphasis on the rivalry that the Governor’s Cup awarded to the winner each year stands on its own pedestal immediately through the doors of the Vanier Football Complex, rather than crowding into the trophy cases with the rest of the Wildcats’ baubles.

“You get to play 12 games, and if you are fortunate enough, you get to play 13 games a year,” Snyder said. “The players invest so much – 340 days a year – it is just hard for me to fathom that the players wouldn’t have great motivation every time that you have the opportunity to play.”

Especially the one day a year that it’s against Kansas.

“If you can’t get up for a rivalry game, you’ve got problems,” said Kansas State wide receiver Curry Sexton, a native of Abilene, Kan. “In a game like this, nobody should need to fire you up. I know the in-state guys, and even the guys from out of state, share the same feeling we do. Everybody will be up for this game and we will not need any added motivation.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Chiefs pass rusher Tamba Hali plans to play in Sunday’s matchup with the Denver Broncos despite spraining his right ankle in last weekend’s loss to San Diego.

The two-time Pro Bowl linebacker rolled over his right ankle in the first half of a 41-38 loss to the Chargers. He watched the second half from the training room with injured teammate Justin Houston, and said initially that he thought the injury might be serious.

Hali, who has nine sacks on the season, went through a walk-through Wednesday and said that he wants to play against the Broncos. Both teams are 9-2 and tied atop the AFC West, though Denver has already beaten Kansas City once this season.

Houston is almost certain to miss the game after dislocating his elbow.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A man who has performed as the Kansas City Chiefs’ mascot for more than two decades is in stable condition after a weekend accident at Arrowhead Stadium. His attorney said Tuesday the injuries appear to have been caused by human error.

Dan Meers has played KC Wolf since the mascot’s inception in 1989. He was seriously injured Saturday while rehearsing a zip line routine ahead of Sunday’s game against the San Diego Chargers. No details about the injury have been released.

Attorney Tim Dollar says Meers’ injuries appear to have been caused from how an outside company secured the riggings. He says an investigation is pending.

According to the website mascothalloffame.com, Meers previously performed as Fredbird, the St. Louis Cardinals’ mascot, and the University of Missouri’s mascot Truman the Tiger.

 

CHICAGO (AP) – The Chicago Cubs have acquired catcher George Kottaras from the Kansas City Royals for a cash consideration.

The 30-year-old Kottaras served as Kansas City’s backup catcher last season after being claimed off waivers from Oakland in January. He played in 46 games, hitting .180 with five home runs and 12 RBIs.

He is a .214 hitter with 29 home runs and 96 RBIs over 295 major league games with Boston (2008-09), Milwaukee (2010-12), Oakland (2012) and Kansas City (2013).

The Cubs announced the deal on Tuesday.

 

Not only is Saturday’s game the last of the regular season for Kansas State but it’s against in-state rival Kansas.

The game is scheduled for an 11 a.m. kickoff in Lawrence, and will be the 111th match up between the two schools dating back to 1902. KU leads the all time series 64-41-5, however, the Wildcats have won four straight and are 16-4 in the series since 1993. In the last four ball games K-State has outscored KU 191-54. The closest game was in 2009, Snyder’s first year back from retirement, when the Wildcats beat KU 17-10 for the first time in three years.

KU comes into the game 3-8 on the season and 1-7 in Big XII play, winning two of their non-conference games early in the season and then snapping a six game losing streak against West Virginia two weeks ago which was also the Jayhawks first conference win in 27 games.

Bill Snyder commented on the improvement he has noticed the Jayhawks make week to week despite their record,” You can take any ballgame that they have played and at some point in the ballgame they are in the ballgame. It doesn’t make any difference, whether it was TCU, Texas Tech, University of Texas, and the only exception might have been Iowa State.”

On KU’s Offense, Snyder said that they have an extremely talented running back, senior halfback James Sims, who averages just over 93 yards per game.

“I think they are very assignment sound as far as their offensive line is concerned. By and large, their schemes are rather consistent with their offensive line. The offensive line has a limited number of schemes and consequently the execution becomes better and better, and that is what you have seen over the course of the year.”

K-State struggled last Saturday against Oklahoma running the ball, only managing 24 yards on 22 attempts. Snyder said Tuesday that the struggle to run the ball was a combination of things.” Some of it I wouldn’t address and some of it just in regards to not being able to execute some of our assignments – not a great deal of assignment errors – but just not being able to finish plays and finish blocks.”

The Wildcats did throw the ball though for 348 yards which had a little bit of impact on the running game Snyder added.

Snyder said that his message to the team Monday for the week was to improve on the mistakes from the Oklahoma game and sustain that throughout the week.

“As far as the University of Kansas ballgame is concerned, even though it is a team that is 1-7 in the conference, they have the capacity to be an extremely fine football team.”

Junction City High School graduate Shanna Witt is a member of the NJCAA Division Two National championship volleyball team.

That information has been provided by a family member.

Witt plays for Cowley County Community College which captured the national title in Perrysburg, Ohio this past weekend.  Cowley defeated Parkland, Illinois 25-21, 23-25, 25-16, 21-25, 16-14 in Saturday’s national championship match.

Cowley County finished the season with a record of 35-4.

Witt was a member of the Junction City Lady Jay volleyball team that qualified for the Class 6A state tournament in 2012.  It was the first time The Lady Jays had ever qualified for the state tournament in volleyball.