Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
Having just tied the score with 1 minute, 59 seconds left in their season-opening game against Douglas last Friday night, Fernley coaches on the headsets began discussing overtime rules.
The Vaqueros just needed a defensive stop to send the game to overtime, where both teams alternate possessions starting with first-and-goal on the opponent’s 10-yard line.
“I was like, we get this thing into overtime, we got it because that’s in our wheelhouse right there,” head coach Anfernee Sloan said. “That would have been right up our alley.”
The Vaqueros never got the chance to find out.
Brenton Weston nailed a 31-yard field goal on the last play of the game, handing Douglas the 16-13 win.
It was yet another heartbreak for a Fernley program that has suffered a few of them the past two seasons, but one that gave Sloan a little different sense this time around.
“I’m very proud of the boys, being able to play a team that’s two divisions higher, that won a regional title last year, was in the state semifinals, and to get into that situation right there,” he said.
A Fernley offense that had moved the ball well all night but bogged down at crucial times, found its footing just in time to rally from a 13-0 deficit in the final nine minutes of the game.
A 2-yard touchdown run by Zach Jackson with 9:32 left in the game gave Douglas that 13-0 lead, but the Vaqueros marched 80 yards in 13 plays for their first touchdown of the season, an 8-yard run by Keeshawn Love with 4:51 left in the game to cut the lead to 13-7.
The Vaqueros then pulled off a surprise onside kick and recovered the ball at the Douglas 49-yard line. A 9-yard pass from Bryce Stephens to Riley McCullar and a 19-yard run by Love took the ball to the Douglas 21, and three plays later, Stephens kept the ball on the option and fought his way into the end zone to tie the game at 13.
“They went 13 unanswered, that’s a tough situation right there with what we do,” Sloan said. “As soon as we punched that one in, it’s like, here we go.”
But with overtime looming on the horizon, Douglas needed just four plays to get from its own 20 to the Fernley 15. After two more runs, the Tigers let the clock run down to 3.1 seconds before calling timeout. Sloan called a timeout just as Weston knocked his first try through the goalposts, but icing the kicker didn’t work, because Weston then did it again, and this time it counted.
The Vaqueros found themselves trailing after Douglas turned a scoreless first half into its 13-0 lead behind two big third-down pass plays.
First, on the opening drive of the second half, Douglas was stuck in a third-and-23 situation from their own 30. But quarterback Zach Jackson turned a short pass from Jackson Ovard into a 63-yard gain to set up a 6-yard touchdown by Evan Youmans.
Then on the first drive of the fourth quarter, facing third-and-6 from the Fernley 19, Ovard found Jackson again, this time for 17 yards, and Jackson scored on the next play.
To that point, Fernley had been productive offensively as far as gaining yards, only to come up empty on all three of their drives that reached Douglas territory. On Fernley’s first possession, Stephens had to fall on a fumbled handoff on third down at the Douglas 34, and the Vaqueros opted for a 51-yard field goal try that was unsuccessful. On their second drive the Vaqueros moved from their 20 to the Douglas 31 but had to illegal formation penalties and a delay of game and had to settle for another field goal try, that missed from 45 yards.
Fernley later missed another field goal, from 41 yards, just before the half.
“We were outplaying them, playing good football, we’re just doing little things wrong, things that are killing our drives, killing our pace of play that we want to play,” Sloan said. “We won the turnover battle, all that stuff. It says something, we won in every phase of the game, we just got to be better in little areas that shoot you in the foot.”
The Vaqueros wound up with 324 yards of total offense for the night. Love led the Vaqueros with 145 yards rushing on 18 carries and Stephens had 64 yards on 13 carries, In all, the Vaqueros had 289 rushing yards at 6,1 yards per carry. Stephens completed 4 of 11 pass attempts for 35 yards, but all four completions came on the two scoring drives. He was often under pressure, but the offense began to click when the Vaqueros turned to their quick passing game, letting Stephens get rid of the ball before the rush could arrive,
“I think it’s always part of the game plan, I think it’s just more or less us being able to understand the situation,” Sloan said. “I don’t think we necessarily need to get to that point in the fourth quarter where we need to start opening it up.”
This week the Vaqueros will be playing at Bishop Union (Calif.), which will be playing its first game of the season but was 11-2 last season and won two playoff games.
Sloan said his focus coming out of Friday’s game is to eliminate mistakes.
“I think it comes down to making sure they focus on the little things,” he said. “We’ve got the right guys in the right spots, I think. Mentally we’re just so much further ahead than what we were last year.”
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