BATTLE MOUNTAIN - For the second year in a row, the Battle Mountain High School varsity football team suffered a blowout loss to Lowry to start the season. However, Longhorn head coach Tim Knight is hoping the loss doesn't carry over to the second game against Incline like it did last year.
For the first five minutes on Friday night, it seemed like Lowry was the team out of sync. The Buckaroos opened by kicking the ball out of bounds, committing a defensive personal foul on third down on the Longhorns' opening drive and fumbling on their first possession.
But once Lowry ridded itself of mistakes, the Buckaroos scored 49 points in the final 18 minutes, 57 seconds, of the first half, en route to a 70-6 win over the Longhorns.
"Right now it is just attitude and we have to change our attitude," Knight said. "If we can change the attitude and tighten a few things up, we will get better. We have to slow people up and make them work for a touchdown and we didn't do that tonight."
Jace Billingsley picked up from where he left off last year, rushing for 336 yards on 11 carries and five touchdowns, all in the first half.
"Battle Mountain is a good team, with a good young quarterback, but they just couldn't match our speed tonight," said LHS head coach Tim Billingsley. "Our line did a great job and Jace had a phenomenal first half. We played great, it was a warm-up game for us, and our season gets going this week at Wooster."
After fumbling on its opening possession, the Buckaroo defense came back to force a Longhorn three-and-out and Lowry went on to score seven touchdowns in eight possessions to close out the first half.
The duo running tandem of Billingsley and Johnny Hernandez drove Lowry 52 yards on its second drive, with Billingsley scoring from seven yards out. The Buckaroos scored again two minutes later after forcing Battle Mountain to punt, this time when Hernandez went in from five yards out to increase the advantage to 14-0 after Taylor Martin's extra point.
Following a Battle Mountain three-and-out, it took just two plays for Lowry to increase the lead to 22-0, as Billingsley scored on a 90-yard run, which included a number of cuts through the Longhorn defense. Lowry added a two-point conversion after a botched snap that saw Daniel Pollock connect with Tytus Millikan.
Matt Ourada recovered a Battle Mountain fumble moments later and the Buckaroos were back in the end zone on a Billingsley 1-yard run.
The Longhorns went three-and-out the first three times they touched the ball in the second quarter. Lowry took advantage on two of those occasions, as Billingsley capped off a 60-yard drive with 4:02 left in the first half on a 20-yard run to make the score 35-0. The Buckaroos scored 65 seconds later, as Billingsley went 60 yards after Michael Billingsley pitched him the ball while running down field. The drive started at the 30-yard line and with Jace Billingsley following behind his cousin, Michael Billingsley flipped him the ball at the 40-yard line and went the rest of the way.
Battle Mountain broke on to the scoreboard with 46 seconds left in the first half, as sophomore quarterback Daniel Itza connected with Hank Filippini on a 34-yard pass that saw Filippini bounce off the Lowry secondary at about the 20-yard line and the senior did the rest. Itza also had a 50-yard run on the drive that went 73 yards.
"We are a couple of inches off of polishing that thing (offense) off and making some big plays," Knight said. "Itza throws the ball well as a sophomore and he will come along. We don't know what plays are going to work right now out of that spread offense."
Despite the touchdown, the Longhorns left too much time on the clock as Lowry scored two plays later with Jace Billingsley running 53 yards to jump the lead to 49-6 at halftime.
The Buckaroos continued their momentum from the first 24 minutes and scored on the first play of the second half as Gus Duncan ran for a 53-yard touchdown, 22 seconds into the half. From that point on, the game was played with a running clock.
"We made our adjustments at halftime, we put some new people in there and on the first play, we had nine kids show up," Knight said. "We were two kids short. I harped on them the entire halftime, 'this is what we are going to do and this is how we are going to do it.' That was just the story of our night. That is something the kids have to fix."
With a new set of offensive players in for the Buckaroos, Lowry drove down the field after forcing a Battle Mountain punt and scored with 1:26 left in the third quarter on a 4-yard pass from Tanner Lecumberry to Millikan. Lowry capped the scoring with 8:42 left in the game, as Brandon Okuma intercepted an errant pass by Itza and returned the pass for a 16-yard touchdown.
"It was nice to know that we could put our backups in and still move the ball," added Billingsley. "Gus came in for Jace in the second half and scores on the first play. I think we can run the ball a little bit and we did that against a decent team."
As a team Lowry ran for 609 yards, as eight different players carried the ball for the Buckaroos. Hernandez joined Jace Billingsley by going over 100 yards, with 103 on nine carries. Duncan added 52 yards, David Rodriguez 33, Michael Billingsley 32, Michal Arenas 29, Okuma 15 and Lecumberry nine.
"We are happy with the win and things got a little away from them," Billingsley said. "We are not afraid to run the ball and we have the line and running backs that can do it. We are not afraid to pass the ball when we need to, we just didn't need to tonight."
The Buckaroos held the Longhorns to 51 yards rushing, with 45 of those from Itza. Ryan Salazar carried the ball twice for five yards, David DeAndreis had five carries for five yards and Filippini and Cody Suthers were each held to -2 yards.
Michael Billingsley was 2-of-4 passing for 57 yards, while Lecumberry was 1-of-1 for five yards and one touchdown, Jace Billingsley caught two balls for 57 yards and Millikan one for five.
Itza was 9-of-22 for 71 yards and one touchdown, as Filippini caught two balls for 40 yards and Salazar three for 34 yards.
"Our defense played great and we gave up one big run and a pass," added Billingsley. "The Itza kid throws a great ball and I think Battle Mountain will hold their own in the 2A."
Battle Mountain plays at Incline on Friday at 7 p.m.
"When you see a big dog come in you have to step up," Knight said. "You have to say, 'we are the little kids down the block but we still have game too.' When we played last year we were a little shell-shocked going into the Incline game. It took us three quarters to get going. Now we have to go on the road to play them and we have to be ready to play."
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