Despite a shaky start that saw them give up an early touchdown, the Lowry High School football team responded with 29 straight points and cruised to a 43-24 victory over Dayton.
The Buckaroos (4-1 Division I-A North, 5-1 overall) have won four games in a row since dropping their league opener at Fernley. Lowry is a three-way tie for second place in the league with Elko and Fernley, while Churchill County is first at 5-0.
"We are starting to play better and better every week," said LHS coach Tim Billingsley. "We were able to move the ball well and only stopped ourselves with a couple of turnovers. We knew they had a couple big running backs but our defense did a good job of shutting them down."
Dayton took advantage of early Lowry miscue and needed just three plays to drive a short 20 yards to go in front 6-0 as John Aguilar scored on a 6-yard run. That turned out to be one of the few highlights for the Dust Devils.
The Buckaroos marched down the field the next time they had the ball and finished a long drive with a 2-yard run by Beau Billingsley. Dayton's Dallas Mendoza fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Lowry scored one player later on a 23-yard pass from Christian Gray to Garrett Naveran.
Dayton looked to be back in business on its next drive, moving the ball inside the Lowry 30-yard line, before it stalled out on downs. The Buckaroos came back with a six-play, 74-yard scoring drive. Gray threw two passes for 43 yards and Billingsley closed out the possession with a 3-yard run.
After forcing a punt by the Dust Devils, the Buckaroos quickly came back with a 70-yard drive, which included a 38-yard pass to Sterling Dennis. Billingsley closed out the drive with a 15-yards, his third on the night to make the score 29-6.
A second Lowry miscue late in the first half led to a second score for Dayton. With under 30 seconds to play, there was miscommunication in the Buckaroo backfield and Gray tossed the ball to Julio Meza, who scored from 13-yards out to cut the Lowry lead to 29-12.
What momentum Dayton had, quickly ended as Omar Guerrero took the ensuing kickoff back 85 yards for a touchdown with less than three seconds left to play to put the Buckaroos up 36-12 at the break.
"We got a little cute at the end and should have run the clock out," Billingsley said. "Then Dayton comes back and kicks the ball deep and Omar found a gap and was gone."
Midway through the third quarter, Dayton attempted a fake punt that failed and Donovan Brumm finished off a seven-play drive with a 1-yard run to increase the lead to 43-12.
With the outcome decided, Dayton added two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. The first came on an 8-yard run by Quinn Santana and the other was when Santana was running to the end zone and fumbled and Keegan Engle fell on the ball for a touchdown.
The Buckaroos ran the ball for 308 yards on the night, with 138 of those from Billingsley on 15 carries. Brumm added 82 yards on 10 carries and Gray finished with 52.
"We pretty much ran the ball wherever we wanted to," Billingsley said. "We did some good things on offense."
Gray was 8-for-8 on the night for 210 yards and one touchdown. Brumm caught three balls for 59 yards, Naveran had two receptions for 63 yards and Kyle Tarr, Colin Doyle and Dennis had one catch apiece.
"We were able to mix in some long passes," said the coach. "We saw some things in their defense that would allow us to pass the ball."
Lowry returns home tonight to face Elko at 7 p.m. as part of Homecoming. The Indians defeated the Buckaroos in the regular season last year, but Lowry came back to beat Elko in the opening round of the playoffs.
"This will be a big one for us and we will see where we are at," Billingsley said. "This is a game where you shouldn't have to say anything to your team to get then ready to play. Elko is a good football team and it should be a good game. It's a big game when it comes down to the playoffs."[[In-content Ad]]
