The Veritas Christian football squad finally got the chance to run victory formation on its new football field with a 54-34 victory over Springfield (Mo.) Christian on Saturday.

“It’s a fun formation,” Veritas quarterback Michael Kay said. “It’s just that sign of a victory, and it’s what we try to do every game.”

Veritas (2-4) never trailed in its third attempt to earn its first victory at the newly built football field. But the Eagles didn’t make things easy for themselves.

Veritas was fast out of the gates behind the arm – and legs – of Kay as the Eagles scored 18 points in the first nine minutes.

Kay threw a five-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Dover and added an 11-yard touchdown pass to Jacob Reynolds, as well.

Kay capped off the early scoring with a one-yard quarterback sneak following a blocked punt that put Veritas at the one-yard line. He finished the night 7-for-10 passing for just 46 yards, but three of the completions were for touchdowns.

The Eagles didn’t necessarily need Kay to throw very often since their running attack accumulated 258 yards – averaging 5.1 yards per carry.

“We had a great week of practice, and just carried it over to the game,” Veritas coach Doug Bennett said. “We were controlling the line of scrimmage. I said from the first game that that is important, and the last weeks were the first times we controlled the line of scrimmage. We were able to run inside or outside and play-action out of that, and that really opens up our offense.”

Coming out of halftime with a 30-6 lead over the Knights, Veritas scored on a seven-yard touchdown run by Jeremiah Johnson and converted the two-point try with a Kay pass to Hogan Randall.

The Springfield offense finally found a spark and put up 22 unanswered points to close its deficit to just 10 going into the final quarter.

“We kind of thought we could coast, and you can’t do that,” Bennett said. “They’re a decent enough team that you can’t let up. They did kind of get back into the game, and I think we’ll learn from that. If that happens in the future, I don’t think we’ll let anybody back into the game.”

Veritas responded by putting together a nine-play, 42-yard touchdown drive that took nearly six minutes.

“Our coaches were constantly telling us we had to get some momentum going or else it was going to get too close,” Johnson said. “And it almost did, but we managed to get a six-minute drive going, and that took a lot of momentum away.”

A one-yard touchdown run by Johnson two minutes later cemented the Veritas victory.

The Knights tacked on a final touchdown with 30 seconds remaining on a 79-yard catch-and-run.

Veritas will go for another home victory Friday when it plays host to Wichita Word of Life, a team Veritas defeated 64-18 a year ago.

“I think we just need to keep it rolling and just continue to work and try to dominate more on the offensive and defensive line of scrimmage,” Bennett said.