After a first half where his offense couldn’t get going and his defense couldn’t get a stop, Fernley
High School football coach Anfernee Sloan only needed a couple of minutes at halftime to make
his point.
Then something he saw on his iPad ended up turning the game completely around.
The Vaqueros successfully recovered an onside kick to open the second half, then another after
they converted the first one into a touchdown, eventually scoring 25 consecutive points on their
way to a 38-29 win in Truckee last Saturday night.
It was a complete reversal from the first half, especially defensively, when Truckee scored on its
first three possessions and only failed on the fourth one because a pass went off the fingertips of
a wide open receiver in the end zone on the last play of the half.
“I think that one right there, that’s a big one, seeding wise, for the future, for the program as a
whole, because now they know,” Sloan said. “That’s a lot of grit. That’s not something that us
coaches are telling them to do, that’s just a program, that’s a healthy culture that we have of kids
that want to play hard and play a full 48 minutes.”
Barely five minutes after the first half ended, the Vaqueros were already on the field to warm up
for the second half. So, what changes did Sloan and the rest of the coaching staff make at
halftime?
“Believe it or not, we didn’t change anything,” Sloan said. “We had a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting up
there, and I told them, ‘I’m going to say this with a calm demeanor, you guys got five minutes to
figure it out.’ We didn’t change anything that we did that second half besides the fact that I just
needed them to clean up what we were doing.”
While his team was warming up for the second half, Sloan took a quick peek at some plays from
the first half on his iPad and noticed a Truckee blocker leaving his spot early on Fernley’s
kickoffs.
Looking for something to spark his team, Sloan decided to try an onside kick right to the spot
where that player had been leaving early. Sure enough, it happened again, and the Vaqueros
recovered the ball at the Truckee 48-yard line.
Seven inside runs by Keeshawn Love, plus an offside penalty on Truckee resulted in Love’s 9-
yard touchdown, and when Bryce Stephens ran in the two-point conversion, the game was tied,
and the Vaqueros were alive.
And live.
Sloan then decided that it worked so well the first time, it was worth trying again.
“After we scored, I was like, I think that kid doesn’t think we’ll do it again,” Sloan said. “We
went right back at him, and it worked out in our favor.”
The Vaqueros again recovered the ball at the Truckee 48. This time it took five runs by Love and
two by Stephens, plus another offsides penalty on Truckee. Loved scored from three yards out,
Noah Spencer kicked the extra point, and the Vaqueros had turned a 21-13 deficit to a 28-21 lead
without Truckee even touching the ball.
Fernley’s next kickoff was a short popup that landed behind the blockers and in front of the
returners, resulting in a scramble that Truckee recovered at its own 21-yard line. On 4th-and-4,
the Wolverines went for it on their own 27-yard line, and the Vaqueros stopped them two yards
short. That set up a 47-yard field goal by Spencer that made it 31-21. It was the fourth field goal
of 43 yards or longer Spencer has made in the past three weeks.
Fernley got another fourth down stop on Truckee’s next possession, and Stephens added to the
lead with a 42-yard touchdown run, making it 38-21.
Rylan Lauter drew Truckee within 38-29 with a 16-yard touchdown run with 7:55 left in the
game, but the Vaqueros ran 13 plays that ate up the entire clock before taking a knee to end it.
“That’s the second time we’ve had to dig ourselves out of a hole in the second half,” Sloan said,
referring to the first game of the season at Douglas. “They played to win and that, to me, is a
scary thing. You got a team that’s not willing to quit, especially one that’s just going to grind it
out and break it.”
Truckee’s offense cut right through the Vaqueros in the first half. On their first possession, the
Wolverines started at the Fernley 38-yard line and scored in six plays, on a 1-yard run by Lauter.
The Vaqueros answered with a 54-yard run by Riley McCullar to tie the game 7-7.
Truckee’s second drive went 75 yards in five plays, and the third was 65 yards in six plays plus a
roughing the passer penalty on Fernley.
In between, the Vaqueros had a 12-yard drive that went 80 yards for a 2-yard touchdown run by
McCullar.
Truckee had the chance to go up two scores before the half, but on the last play of the second
quarter from Fernley’s 3-yard line, quarterback Sam Kuntz’s pass went off the fingertips of a
wide-open receiver right under the goalpost.
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