The last time a Friday night high school football game was played at Jerry Tobin Field at Lowry High School in Winnemucca was on Nov. 1, 2019, over 660 days ago.
While much of the opening weekend of the high school football season was wiped out because of smoke and Covid and contact tracing issues, Douglas High School was able to make the trip east to Winnemucca on Friday night to open the season against Lowry.
The two schools were together in the “AA” back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The Tigers were without University of Nevada commit Christopher Smalley and Lowry took advantage, slowing the Tigers offense for much of the night in the 24-6 victory.
“That was a pretty good effort for us,” said LHS coach Taua Cabatbat. “We worked hard over the summer and took some kids up to the EOU camp and we competed well. This is a pretty good Douglas team. They will do some good things. It’s good to be playing at home under the lights in front of a crowd and open up with a win.”
Lowry jumped on the board with four minutes left in the first quarter, after taking advantage of excellent field position after Douglas had to punt from the 1-yard line after a bad snap over Anthony Menzer’s head.
Lowry quickly drove 29 yards in 74 seconds, scoring on a 11-yard run by Giovani Sapien to make the score 7-0.
On the ensuing possession, Douglas looked poised to counter with a score, as the running game with Gabriel Foster moved the ball inside the Lowry 20-yard line. However, the drive stalled out on downs and that turned out to be the Tigers’ best drive of the first half.
Lowry extended its lead to 14-0 with nine minutes left in the first half on an 8-yard run by quarterback Joseph Vankuiken. Vankuiken completed a couple of big passes to Braden Hammargren and Jeremiah Grasmick on the drive.
“Everyone came out and played and they played hard,” Cabatbat said. “Everything we preached was money tonight. Vankuiken has turned it on and stepped for us a sophomore. We had some questions at first but he has answered them for us.”
The Buckaroos had an opportunity to add to the lead late in the first half, but gave the ball back on a fumble inside the Douglas 10-yard line and the score remined 14-0 at halftime.
After picking off Vankuiken early in the third quarter, Douglas got its offense going and drove inside the Lowry 20-yard line once again, only to see the drive end on downs.
Lowry answered back on the next drive, adding a 25-yard field goal by Hammargren midway through the third quarter to extend the advantage to 17-0.
Douglas took nearly eight minutes off the clock at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter and got on the scoreboard on a 2-yard run by Menzer. Romaine Smokey did much of the damage on the drive for the Tigers with a handful of rushes to move the ball down the field. The Tigers missed the extra point and trailed 17-6 with 8:29 to play.
“I was proud of our defense tonight,” the coach added. “They just went out there and did what we asked of them. We kept it pretty basic and stuck to our strengths.”
Any thought of a Douglas comeback was put to rest, as Sapien took the ensuing kickoff 85 yards for a Lowry touchdown and the final points of the night.
Lowry is scheduled to play at Galena next Friday at 6 p.m. Galena had its opening game canceled due to Covid protocol issues in their program.
“At the end of the day, it’s just one game and a good win,” Cabatbat said. “We are taking it game-by-game but want to be somewhere at the end of the season instead of watching other teams play.”
