Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
As a game that once seemed well in hand had suddenly gotten close, Fernley coach Anfernee Sloan turned to the one advantage he knew his team had last Friday night against Fallon.
The Vaqueros had just received a kickoff leading by 10 points with 9:56 left in the game, after Fallon had scored twice to cut into Fernley’s 24-point advantage, and Sloan sidled up to junior running back Keeshawn Love.
“I told Keeshawn, ‘Cover it with two hands, I’m about to feed you right here all the way down the field,’” Sloan said. “The kid put everything on his back and, again, very proud of him and him being able to lead that offense that last series that we had.”
The Vaqueros took possession of the ball at their own 20-yard line, and embarked on a 15-play drive that ate up more than seven minutes off the clock. Nine of the plays were runs by Love, for a total of 56 yards, and although the drive ended with an incomplete pass on fourth down, it essentially ended the game. With no timeouts, Fallon’s last drive reached the Fernley 43-yard line before a fourth down try came up short.
The 31-21 win was Fernley’s second in a row, the first time in Sloan’s three years as head coach that they’ve won consecutive games.
“Even though we didn’t score points (on that last drive), they played a pivotal role in that last series because we forced them to burn their timeouts and again, I think we wore them down,” Sloan said.
The Vaqueros controlled the ball so well that they only had six possessions in the game, but they scored touchdowns on four of them.
“I truly think we dominated,” Sloan said. “That was a very flawless game against a good opponent, right? I was very impressed with how we played defensively, I was very impressed with how it is that we played on offense. I couldn’t tip my hat off any more.”
The Vaqueros started the game with a drive similar to the one that ended it, a 15-play, 77-yard march that featured six runs by Love for 22 yards and ended with a 1-yard touchdown run by quarterback Bruce Stephens.
Fernley’s second drive was a comparative sprint, taking only nine plays to 78 yards, capped by Love’s 37-yard touchdown run and a two-point conversion that made it 15-0.
After an interception by Brody Jones, the Vaqueros went 81 yards in 13 plays for another touchdown run by Stephens, from 8 yards, and a 22-0 lead.
A pass interference penalty on what would have been the last play of the first half gave Fallon a second chance, and they capitalized with a 13-yard pass from Matthew Bird to Wyatt Peek to cut Fernley’s margin to 22-7.
“They had a hell of a play call down there, I thought that was very well designed and coach Connors, he knows what he’s doing,” Sloan said.
A bad snap that went over the punter’s head and out of the end zone for a safety extended Fernley’s lead to 24-7, and with a short field after the kickoff, the Vaqueros scored again, on a 36-yard touchdown pass from Stephens to Riley McCullar with 1:00 left in the third quarter to put Fernley up 31-7.
But Fernley tried an onside kick that didn’t work, giving Fallon the ball at the Fernley 36-yard line, and the Greenwave took advantage of the short field with a 15-yard touchdown run by Bird to make it 31-14.
Fallon then tried its own onside kick and succeeded, leading to another short drive for a touchdown, a 4-yard run by Bird, to cut the lead to 31-21 with 9:56 left in the game.
That’s when Sloan decided to put the ball in Love’s hands.
Love finished the game with 190 yards on 30 carries. Stephens had 42 yards rushing and added 130 yards passing with five completions in eight attempts. Three of those completions went to McCullar, for 87 yards.
The Vaqueros did a lot of their damage on he ground, 272 yards in all, on 46 carries, behind a formation they call “heavy,” in which they use an extra offensive lineman, Harley Denison, and a tight end, Jaidyn Juliot, on the same side.
“Last year we ran it with two tight ends, this year we’re running it with an extra tackle, and that’s where Harley came in,” Sloan said. “I got a kid that can bench 315 pounds, is strong, smart, three to four year varsity football player for us, understands the ins and outs of what it is that we’re doing.”
The “heavy” moniker is even more apt when they run that formation on the right side, with Denison and Juliot flanking 250-pound right guard Kole Miller.
“We got a good thing going and you know what? There’s some more things going in next week,” Sloan said.
That would be Friday night in Winnemucca, when the Vaqueros will face Lowry. The Buckaroos are 1-5 overall, 1-3 in the Northern 3A, but have a prolific quarterback in Erick Valencia who averages 78.5 yards rushing per game and passes for 249.8 per game.
“That kid’s playing some pretty good football right now,” Sloan said. “I think the emphasis is going to be to stop him. You stop him, you win that football game.”
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