The Lowry High School football team won its first league game of the year 35-22, against the Sparks Railroaders on Friday to start the season off correctly.
Lowry used a punishing ground attack, rushing 47 times and amassing 304 total yards.
The air game only completed 2-of-12 passes for 13 yards.
"It was a good game; we knew it wasn’t going to be easy for us," said LHS coach Taua Cabatbat. "We had good contributions all around. Our workhorse (Anthony Peterson) went down early, but I thought that (Jace) Mentaberry, (Preston) Snow, (Cole) Jones and (Michael) Yarnell all stepped up and did a great job.”
Brendan Domire ran 51 yards for a touchdown to give the Bucks an early lead 7-0 lead after Mentaberry’s extra point.
Caleb Sanchez recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, giving the Buckaroos great field position.
Lowry took a 14-0 lead when Scottie Smith caught a touchdown pass from Domire and Mentaberry converted the kick.
“I think that every guy tonight played for the guy next to him, everybody did their job on defense and offense,” Domire said. “Everything was clicking and we fought until the end.”
In the second quarter, Domire then scored on a quarterback keeper and the Mentaberry kick made the score 21-0.
Sparks finally got on the board with 5:13 left in the first half but they missed the extra point, making the score 21-6.
“I think we did a good job offensively maintaining possession and killing the clock," Cabatbat said.. "Defensively we had a big turnaround from last week. I know the score doesn’t show it, but we did a better job defensively.”
The Railroaders scored first in the second half and a two-point conversion made it 21-14.
Moments later, Domire took another run into the end zone, but Mentaberry’s kick missed and the score was then 27-14.
Domire took the score to 33-14 in the fourth quarter, with yet another rushing touchdown. The senior had four rushing touchdowns on the night.
This time Mentaberry ran in a two-point conversion to bring the score to 35-14. Sparks scored one more time with 3:56 to play making it 35-22. Domire ended the game with 21 carries for 161 yards on the night.
“We go to Spring Creek next week, every week the competition is going to get harder and harder for us," Cabatbat said. "We have to improve week-to-week and play our style of football. If we do that, I think we will be alright.”
Spring Creek lost to Churchill County (Fallon) on Friday 48-6. Kickoff on Friday night is set for 7 p.m. and it is the first road game for Lowry.
“I think next week’s game at Spring Creek is going to be a dogfight the whole game,” Domire said. “We need to come out ready, be prepared to hit, get our heads in the game and work through every problem that we find.”
