BATTLE MOUNTAIN - When the Battle Mountain football team visited Yerington on Sept. 28, everything went wrong for the Longhorns in a 41-6 loss to the Lions.
Battle Mountain earned another shot at Yerington this past Friday night in the opening round of the Division III state playoffs and made it count in a big way.
The Longhorns (7-3) took a 12-0 lead into the fourth quarter and held on for a 12-9 victory on the Lions' home field, avenging the earlier defeat. It is the second year in a row Battle Mountain has ended Yerington's season.
"We did everything to hurt ourselves the first time we played," said BMHS head coach Tim Knight. "We changed some things up for this game and it worked. We put some quicker guys on the outside to stop their fly sweep. We moved our bigger guys inside to stop the run."
Battle Mountain drew first blood, scoring seven minutes into the second quarter. Daniel Itza connected with Jesse Jones on a 6-yard touchdown pass for a 6-0 advantage after the missed extra point.
That was the only scoring of the first half, despite the Longhorns having the ball twice more inside the Yerington 20-yard line. Battle Mountain was flagged for 150 yards in penalties in the contest, stopping the momentum on a number of possessions.
"We had our chances to add to the lead," Knight said. "Penalties just killed us all night."
The Longhorns extended the margin to 12-0 midway through the third quarter on a 5-yard run by Kody Schoorl. On the same drive, Itza connected on passes of 20 and 25 yards.
Yerington got on to the scoreboard with five minutes left in the game on an 18-yard pass from Jeremy Foil to Tylor Thomas. The Lions converted the extra point to close the gap to five points at 12-7.
Yerington was able to get the ball back with just under four minutes to play and drove to the Battle Mountain 11-yard line, when the Longhorns stopped the Lions on a fourth-and-two play.
With just over a minute left in the game, the Longhorns ran three plays, losing yardage on each one. On fourth down, and with 40 seconds left to play, Battle Mountain decided to have Itza run time off the clock and take a safety with 30 seconds left to go.
"Anything could happen down near the goal line," said the coach. "You could have a bad snap on a punt or have the punt blocked. We decided to have Daniel run around for about 10 seconds and take the safety. It got real interesting at the end."
Yerington had one last chance to win the game, but came up short of the end zone on its next four plays.
Itza finished the night 19-of-31 passing for 191 yards, including the one touchdown to Jones, who had three receptions for 12 yards. Itza added 68 yards on the ground on 13 carries.
Jeremy Price and David DeAndreis led Battle Mountain with 72 and 61 yards receiving, respectively.
Battle Mountain travels to Las Vegas on Saturday to face Mountain View at 1 p.m. The Saints are coming off a 56-7 win over Needles, Calif., in the opening round of the Division III South playoffs.
Pershing County hosts Lincoln County on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the other state semifinal. The winners of the two games will play in the Division III state championship at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas on Saturday, Nov. 17, at 3 p.m., unless the two north teams win.
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