By Robert Perea
In March, Fernley High School football coach Anfernee Sloan started a clock to count down 155 days until the first game of the season August 15 at Douglas.
Friday night, that wait and the hard work in between paid off. Fernley rallied from a 21-7 halftime deficit to beat Douglas 29-21 in the season-opening game for both teams last Friday night. The Vaqueros’ defense shut out the Tigers in the second, half, including a key fourth down stop, while Bryce Stephens ran for two touchdowns and Riley McCullar had one to help the Vaqueros turn the game around.
“I told these guys since the very first day, ‘You can go and shock the world right off the bat in the beginning of this year because you’re a great football team,” Sloan said. “For us to go and beat a team that just got promoted to the 5A was pretty impressive. And, you know, I think that kind of shows you the direction which this football program is going.”
Stephens scored on Fernley’s first two possessions in the third quarter. Douglas drove to the Fernley 39-yard line on the opening possession of the third quarter before the Vaqueros’ defense forced a punt. On second-and-14 from the Fernley 16-yard line, Stephens kept the ball on an option keeper, but as he was getting tackled at the 24-yard line, he pitched the ball to McCullar who took it the rest of the way for an 84-yard touchdown. After a penalty against Douglas on the extra point, the Vaqueros went for two and Stephens ran it in himself to cut Douglas’ lead to 21-15.
After another Douglas punt, the Vaqueros drove 70 yards in nine plays, with Stephens scoring on a 3-yard run. The extra point put Fernley ahead 22-21 with 35.7 seconds left in the third quarter.
Douglas responded with a nine-play drive, but on fourth-and-3 at the Fernley 33, the Tigers came up a yard short on a quarterback sneak. Stephens capitalized with a 57-yard touchdown run that put the Vaqueros up 29-21.
Douglas had one last chance to try to tie the game. On second-and-9 from its own 37-yard line, Douglas quarterback Keston Sadabseng lofted a pass down the sideline to Jackson McKinney running down the right sideline for a big gain. But as McKinney got inside the Fernley 25-yard line, Alex Juliot knocked the ball out of his hands and McCullar scooped it up and returned it to the Fernley 48. From there, the Vaqueros took a knee three times and ran out the clock.
“The first half was night and day compared to our second half,” coach Anfernee Sloan said. “We cleaned up the football, we made the adjustments, we tackled the football, and guess what? They went and executed, and we came out on top.”
The Vaqueros trailed 21-7 in the first half, largely because of the same problems that thwarted them for much of the last three years. A fumble on the first play of the game led to a Douglas touchdown just a minute and a half into the game. Another fumble inside the Douglas 10-yard line cost the Vaqueros a chance to get within a touchdown before the half, but in what might have been the biggest play of the game, Brody Jones tackled Douglas receive Nathan Priou three yards short of the goal line on the last play of the first half, when the Tigers were trying to extend their lead to 21 points.
“If they score there, that’s a different game,” Sloan said.
Douglas running back Zachary Jackson scored all three of Douglas’ touchdowns in the first half. His three yard run with 10:30 left in the first quarter after the Vaqueros’ fumed on the first play of the game made it 7-0.
After Keeshawn Love tied the game at 7-7 with a 51-yard touchdown run, Jackson scored on a 2-yard run with 11:22 left in the second quarter, and he added a 14-yard touchdown with 4:23 left in the second.
Jackson finished with 156 yards rushing on 25 carries and caught five passes for 53 more years.
Listed at 6-foot-2 and 207 pounds, Jackson has an offer from Southern Utah, a Division I FCS school.
“That’s a good running back, and we prioritized all week, we need to tackle him,” Sloan said. “That’s tough, trying to stop a Division 1 running back inside the five. But for the most part, that second half, they did a heck of a job.”
Keeshawn Love, Fernley’s answer to Jackson, led the Vaqueros with 136 yards on 15 carries, while McCullar had 90 and Stephens added 69. In all, the Vaqueros ran for 321 yards on 30 carries. Douglas finished with 369 yards of offense, but nearly 300 of those yards came in the first half.
This week the Vaqueros host Biship Union (CA) in their home opener at 7 p.m. Friday, and Sloan said the challenge is to put last Friday’s win behind them.
“Don’t let this define your season,” Sloan said. “We’ve got to get ready because you’ve got somebody that can come in here and take it to you.”
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