WINNEMUCCA - With the season at the halfway point, the Division I-A North football standings are starting to take shape with the haves and have nots.
Sitting at the top of the league is Lowry and Churchill County with 4-0 records. The Buckaroos have played one more game this season, an opening-night rout of Battle Mountain.
Both offenses are proving to be a nightmare for the rest of the league with the Greenwave averaging 54 points a game, while the Buckaroos are putting up 48 a night.
For the most part, both schools have fed on the bottom of the conference, with Churchill County picking up the first key win of the season, a 48-20 triumph over Elko.
Lowry's first test of the season will come tonight when it travels to Elko to face its long-time rival. The series has been a lopsided affair until recently. In 2011, Lowry earned its first win over Elko since 1981 and claimed a second consecutive victory over the Indians last year in Winnemucca.
Elko is a program on the upswing and it will be interesting to see how Lowry reacts in its first "big" game of the season. Even when the Indians were part of the 4A (now Division I) winning games in eastern Nevada were hard to come by.
With just four teams advancing to the playoffs this fall, tonight's matchup may be a precursor to what the postseason may bring in November.
Churchill County faces the same schedule as Lowry does in the upcoming weeks. To make it easy, the Greenwave play the same team the Buckaroos do, but just a week earlier. For instance, Churchill County faces Sparks tonight and the Railroaders come to Winnemucca the following week.
If Lowry can leave Elko with a third consecutive victory in the series, the Buckaroos' schedule lightens up a bit with home games against Sparks and Spring Creek.
The final two weeks of the regular season will test Lowry with road trips to Fernley and to Churchill County. There's already talk going that the Greenwave and Buckaroos will be undefeated going into the game with a winner take all scenario for the league title. However, there is still a lot of football to be played and anything is possible.
The No. 1 spot in the Division I-A North means staying home for the first two weeks of the playoffs, avoiding a trip to southern Nevada. I am pretty sure Lowry is sick of traveling the 500 miles to Overton, which it has done in the last three years.
I know it's still a month away, but I assume Churchill County remembers the two losses to Lowry in Winnemucca a year ago. Lowry won the regular season finale 21-7 and a week later beat the Greenwave 41-14 on a chilly November night. From the start of the playoff game you could tell that the Churchill County players did not want to be on the field.
The Buckaroos can also look back to 2011, when they lost 24-0 at Fallon to close out the regular season. Lowry started that year at 8-0, but suffered losses in its last two games.
Both Lowry and Churchill County are by far the most athletic teams in the Division I-A North and it should be fun when they get together. The Greenwave like to throw the ball around the field as shown by Morgan Dirickson against Elko. He threw for 440 yards and seven touchdowns. Churchill County will run the ball as well with Trent Tarner leading the way.
The Buckaroos are a strong dual threat with Calvin Connors at quarterback and Brandon Okuma, Beau Billingsley, Elijah Frei and Thomas Schwartz at running back. Throw in receivers Robert Stepper, Josh Shaver, Nate Eldodt and Tytus Millikan and we are in for a pretty good show.
The last time a state football championship was won in Winnemucca was 1965 and that was Humboldt County High School. Lowry came into the picture a few years later.
Lowry played in the state championship games in 1990 and 1992, losing to Truckee and Moapa Valley, respectively.
There is plenty of time for talk in the next month and half, but I will use the old cliché of taking it one game at a time until then.
Winnemucca Publishing sports editor Tony Erquiaga can be reached via email at t.erquiaga@winnemuccapublishing.net.
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