BROOKVILLE — Six weeks into its 2025 football season, Ell-Saline High School was at a crossroads.

Granted, the Cardinals were 4-1 and riding a four-game winning streak — all blowouts — during which they looked darn near invincible. But the same team that outscored those last four opponents by a combined 202-6 also still started from a lopsided 32-8 road loss against Hanover to start the season.

It was time for the Cardinals to find out just how far they had come in a month and a half, and what better test than facing Little River, unbeaten and ranked No. 2 in Eight-Man Division I.

Pictured- Senior TE/DE Trey Williams

“We lost our first game, and they’re a really good team, and then we just went blowout after blowout,” said senior Trey Williams, a two-way starter at tight end and defensive end. “We proved to ourselves that we can do that, and now we needed to step up to the challenge.

“Little River was that challenge.”

Ell-Saline not only met that challenge last Friday on homecoming night. What made the Cardinals’ thrilling 22-20 victory even more special was the way in which they got it done.

After trailing 14-0 at halftime, Ell-Saline battled back, only to trail by six points with less than a minute remaining. With 33 seconds on the clock, running back Kas Kramer hit Collin Dent with a 2-yard touchdown pass to tie it and then on the two-point conversion attempt handed off to Jaxsen Sneed for the lead.

An interception by Dent seconds later sealed the victory.

Pictured- Senior QB/DE Reese Krone

“That was probably — that and our (playoff) win my sophomore year against Hoxie — were the two monumental memories of high school football for me,” said senior quarterback Reese Krone. “That was a great moment.

“But that moment was only after we got that last-second interception, because Little River is a great team offensively, so the game wasn’t over until I kneeled that ball. But once that moment came, we were all thrilled.”

Not that winning is anything new for Ell-Saline, which in its four seasons since making the move from 11-man to eight-man football has compiled a 29-8 record. That mirrored the career of the Cardinals’ 10 seniors who were freshmen when the switch took place.

After a 6-3 record in 2022, they followed it up with a 10-2 mark and playoff run to the Eight-Man I semifinals and then last year were 8-2, bowing out in the second round.

“I’ve always known that we had a winning program, but especially when I started playing my sophomore, junior and senior year, those wins, it’s a great confidence, and it builds expectations for the younger guys, including me, when I was younger,” said Krone, who has completed 67% of his passes for 704 yards and 10 touchdowns with no interceptions in his second season as the starting quarterback. “You have a team and (individual) role to fill so that’s great.

“But to be quite honest with you, the losses make more of an impact than the wins, because we still have eight of those losses and they’ve all been big games versus great teams. So, just learning from those and letting that develop into the next year, every year those losses are influential.”

With the victory over Little River, Ell-Saline debuted in the KSHSAA Covered rankings for Eight-Man I this week at No. 5. This week the Cardinals go on the road to face a 1-5 Goessel team before ending the regular season at home against No. 2-ranked Central Plains.

Central Plains’ lone loss came against unbeaten Victoria, the No. 2 team in Eight-Man II, one spot ahead of Hanover.

Sixth-year head coach Joe Roche, a fixture on the Ell-Saline staff since 1997, likes what he saw from his Cardinals in the Little River game.

Pictured- Head Coach Joe Roche

“It shows the character of our kids and how composed they were, and in a stressful situation,” Roche said. “It’s always good to start the year with a tough game and to have another one midway through, toward the end.”

“We’ll have a few more here, and I like those kinds of games.”

With a 34-man roster, Ell-Saline has leaned heavily on its senior class to lead the way. Kramer has rushed for 500 yards with 10 touchdowns on 9.1 yards per carry while Williams has 14 catches for 297 yards and four scores, Dent 12 receptions for 101 yards and Landon May 10 catches for 140.

Defensively, Kramer has 39.5 tackles and five interceptions, Dent 23 tackles with four picks, Krone 23 stops with 4.5 sacks and May 23 tackles.

“It’s everything,” Roche said of the senior class. “Where they wo, we go. We put a lot of trust in them to make good decisions on and off the field.”

Krone is convinced that with the regular season winding down, the Cardinals still have plenty left in the tank.

“I think we’re capable of anything, and that’s kind of what’s special with us,” he said. “But if I learned anything from last year it’s not to take that talent for granted.

“Last year we had the same goals, and they were very attainable. We were a state caliber team in my opinion. We just need to take it week-by-week and don’t take it for granted.”