Eudora ? Eudora running back Travis Clarke ran for two touchdowns in last week’s 42-0 season-opening victory over Osawatomie, but he also fumbled the ball twice. Those fumbles led to him carrying a football to his classes on Tuesday, hoping to make sure those fumbles do not happen again.

“He wants to get better,” Eudora coach Gregg Webb said of the 150-pound junior. “That is the great thing about Travis.”

Running the football has been Webb’s style since he took over the Cardinals in 2002, and Clarke is expected to lead the way this season.

“Our tailback is the feature back in our offense and always has been,” Webb said. “Maybe it always won’t be that way, but until we get John Elway back there, we are going to stick it in our tailback’s hands a lot of times.”

Eudora scored all six of its touchdowns on the ground last week, and the Cardinals will put their rushing attack up against Central Heights at 7 tonight.

Central Heights lost its season opener, 28-0, to Anderson County, but Webb does not plan on looking past Central Heights.

“If they were a little embarrassed by their performance, and I think they were, and their coach was, I know, they are not going to roll over in week two,” Webb said. “They will come out and give us what they got.”

Webb plans to continue to make improvements this week, despite dominating Osawatomie.

“I just didn’t think we were knocking kids off the ball like we should have,” Webb said. “We were getting gains of four and five when we should have been ripping off gains of 10 and 15.”

The vocal leader on the team is not Clarke nor senior quarterback Kent Swanson. It is the five members of the Cardinals’ offensive line – Richard Wilks, Tim Durkin, Mike Sledd, Max Alvarez and Kyle Plaice. Webb said he expected the offensive line to help the Cardinals win this season.

The offensive line is big, with weights ranging from 230 to 290 pounds, helping open big holes for the running backs.

Webb feels he has a complete team on both sides of the ball, but that was not always the case. Webb did not expect much out of his defense when the Cardinals began practices in August. He expected his rushing-based offense to lead the way.

However, that didn’t happen when the defense shut out the offense in the team’s first scrimmage in August.

That carried over to Eudora’s first game last week, when the defensive unit allowed less than 100 yards of total offense and shut out Osawatomie.

“They are not the most talented group in the world, but they play hard,” Webb said. “Our coaches have done just a tremendous job with them to get them ready, and it is nice to see.”

Defensive tackles Morgan Abel and Michael Witten led the way last week, and Webb said the defense collectively worked well together. Webb will hope for a repeat performance tonight against Central Heights but knows it will be a challenge.

“They have athletes at the skill positions that just scare you to death and can score on any given play,” Webb said.