Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
The dilemma Anfernee Sloan found himself facing last Friday night at Lowry High School is one most football coaches would call a blessing.
And when it was over, even he couldn’t believe it.
Keeshawn Love set a 3A state record for rushing yards in a game and tied the 3A state record for touchdowns in a game, both the second best marks in Nevada history regardless of classification, to lead the Vaqueros to a wild 79-47 win over Lowry.
It was the third consecutive win for the Vaqueros, who would clinch a home game for the playoffs if they beat Spring Creek this week. The Vaqueros are now 4-4 overall, 3-2 in the Northern 3A, in a three-way tie for third place with Spring Creek and Fallon.
A week after having only six offensive possessions the whole game in their 31-21 win over Fallon, the Vaqueros scored on all 11 of their drives against Lowry. They also took a knee to end the first half and again to end the game.
But with his defense having trouble stopping Erick Valencia, who started the game at quarterback for Lowry, then moved to running back late in the second quarter, Sloan wanted his offense to control the ball and keep it away from the Lowry offense.
Instead, they kept ripping off long touchdown runs, particularly Love.
“I told (assistant coach Chris) Ward I want to control the football, but it was like, I can’t,” Sloan said. “I give it to Keeshawn, I could only imagine what he ran for.”
What he ran for was 526 yards on 35 carries, with seven touchdowns. In addition, quarterback Bryce Stephens ran seven times for 143 yards and three touchdowns, and Riley McCullar added 46 yards on two carries and a touchdown. In all, the Vaqueros ran for 727 yards. They were so successful running the ball that they wound up with a big run even on the only pass play Sloan called the entire game. Fernley faced 4th-and-8 at the Lowry 29-yard line in the third quarter, but Stephens was pressured when he dropped back to pass and scrambled for 18 yards.
Love’s 526 yards were a 3A state record, which had been held by Tim Maloy of Reno with 373 yards against Mineral County in 1974, and second in Nevada history behind Mike Kanellis of Spanish Springs, who ran for 533 yards against South Tahoe in 2007. Love’s seven touchdowns tied the 3A record set by Myloe Lewis of Cheyenne, who did it in 2012 against Western and also tied the for the second most in Nevada history. Antoine White of Las Vegas ran for eight touchdowns against Basic in 2001.
The NIAA record book does not have any information for yards by a team in a single game.
While the final totals were prolific, for most of the first half, the Vaqueros were simply trying to keep pace with Lowry, particularly Valencia, who had a productive night of his own, rushing for 222 yards on 22 carries and completing 5 of 6 passes for 102 more yards,
Lowry scored on its first three possession, to take leads of 7-0, 14-7 and 21-14, and each time the Vaqueros answered back. It was Stephens after Lowry’s first two touchdowns, trying the game at 7-7 with a 44-yard touchdown run, at 14-14 with a 60-yard touchdown run, and then Riley McCullar with a 20-yard touchdown to make it 21-21.
At that point, Fernley became the first team to break serve on defense, getting a fourth down stop, and two plays later Love went 53 yards for a score that gave Fernley its first lead at 28-21.
But he was just getting started.
After another fourth down stop gave Fernley the ball back, the Vaqueros went 55 yards in six plays, capped by Love’s 15-yard touchdown to take a 36-21 lead.
A 52-yard touchdown run by Valencia on his first play at running back cut the lead to 36-27, but Love answered with a 47-yard touchdown to extend it back to 43-27. Valencia capped a 55 yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown to make it 43-34 at halftime.
Lowry got a break on the second half kickoff, when its short kick bounced at the Fernley 30-yard line and the Buckaroos recovered the loose ball. Two plays later, Connor Peterson, who came in at quarterback for Lowry when Valenica moved to running back, connected with Ryder Huitt for a 27-yard touchdown to cut Fernley’s lead to 43-40.
For the first time in the game Fernley put together an extended drive, taking nine plays to go 55 yards, for Love’s fourth touchdown from 4 yards out for a 50-40 lead.
It was 50-47 when Fernley went on another time-consuming drive, this one 65 yards in 12 plays, taking 6:37 off the clock and going up 57-47 on Stephens’ third score of the game, from three yards out.
Then Love put two emphatic exclamation points on the game, adding 63-yard and 90-yard touchdown runs.
After giving up 43 points in the first half and touchdowns on Lowry’s first two possessions in the third quarter, the Vaqueros didn’t allow another point.
“Again, very proud of them making adjustments and then obviously blowing the top off the roof right there,” Sloan said. “Offensively it’s starting to turn into one of those things like teams have got to get us off the field, and they’re not doing that. Which is good because it kind of helps our defense out.”
With their 3-game winning streak, the Vaqueros have turned around their 1-4 start, and while Sloan says the goal is always to go 1-0 each week, he said the Vaqueros clearly have built some momentum.
“We’re set up to go on and win three, four, five, potentially six, maybe seven if they do it the right way in a row, and turn this into one of those storybook things if they keep doing what they’re doing,” Sloan said.
But first, the Vaqueros will try to secure their spot in the top four playoff seeds, which will guarantee them a home game in the first round of the playoffs. To do that they will need to do something they haven’t done since their state championship season in 2019 – beat Spring Creek. The Spartans are also 3-2 in league play, 3-5 overall.
“Who cares about the win streak right now, who cares about the 600 yards we might have ran for, the goal is to go and beat Spring Creek and let’s lock up a pretty good seed for the playoffs,” Sloan said. “We’re going to go attack them, we’re going to go and get the W, that’s the mindset, that’s the attitude and we want to go 1-0.”
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