FALLON — With 3 seconds left, the Lowry football team was determined to not end the season with a shutout loss.
Having difficulties converting in the red zone, the Buckaroos came through at the end to prevent being shutout as Fallon won the 3A Northern battle, 35-8, Friday night at the Edward Arciniega Athletic Complex.
Lowry ends the season with at 1-8 with the lone win coming at Dayton, while Fallon improves to 5-4 and will travel to Elko on Thursday for the first round of the regional playoffs.
When it looked like Fallon would record its third shutout of the season, the Buckaroos came up big late in the game.
The Buckaroos constructed a 14-play, 10-minute drive in the fourth quarter that benefited strongly by the running game.
Victor Rosas and Jacob Frazier helped push Lowry across the field with Rosas breaking through the middle for a 3-yard touchdown to prevent the shutout. Rosas carried the ball six times for 41 yards during the drive.
Turnovers hurt the Buckaroos to begin the game as they lost a fumble and threw two interceptions in the first three series. Lowry turned it over on downs in the red zone on its fourth drive of the first half.
The Buckaroos faced an early deficit and had the Greenwave defense against the fence but couldn’t capitalize.
After a 19-yard completion from Conner Nelson to Tyson Ernst to put Fallon up 8-0 with 9 minutes, 30 seconds left in the first quarter, Lowry quarterback Ren Mattson connected on an 11-yard pass for the first play of the series before finding Matthew Souza for a 25-yard game to the Fallon 39-yard line. A bad snap, though, on the next play thwarted Lowry’s attempt at tying the game.
Fallon took advantage of the turnover with a 22-yard zone read from Nelson and a 21-yard swing pass to Brock Uptain to set up Cade Vercellotti’s 1-yard touchdown run with 5:20 left in the quarter.
Down 15-0, Lowry couldn’t get going on its second series, which resulted in another turnover when Trey Rooks, who recovered the fumble earlier, intercepted Mattson’s pass at Lowry’s 30-yard line. Fallon, though, lost a fumble three plays later but Lowry committed its third turnover of the game on L12’s interception.
The Greenwave capitalized on the third turnover with an eight-play drive fueled by Vercellotti’s running attack and capped off with a 1-yard touchdown run to put Fallon up 22-0 eight seconds into the second quarter.
Lowry had its best series of the half when it entered into the red zone after Mattson’s 44-yard pass to Salvador Perez in double coverage.
The Greenwave defense stepped up by shutting down Frazier’s three attempts to break through on the ground. Facing a fourth-and-2 on Fallon’s 8-yard line, Frazier was stopped at the line of scrimmage.
Six plays later, Fallon found the end zone for the fourth time after Vercellotti opened the drive with a 23-yard run and Nelson found Anthony Freeman to bookend the series with a 22-yard touchdown pass with 3:51 left in the first half.
Nelson found Freeman on the previous play as the junior receiver leaped high to snag a 26-yard reception.
Vercellotti ran for his third score of the night with 5:22 left in the third quarter to initiate the running clock. After forcing a punt, Fallon stuck to the ground attack for all but one play as Vercellotti’s 6-yard sweep capped off the Greenwave’s scoring for the night.
