There was nothing fancy about the way Fallon’s Carson Melendy carved up the Fernley defense
last Friday night. He didn’t dance and didn’t dazzle; he simply ran like a man late for something
important and unwilling to be stopped.
Melendy ran for 357 yards on 23 carries to lead the Greenwave to a 42-15 win in Fernley last
week, giving Fallon the chance to clinch the No. 1 playoff seed with a win at Elko this Friday
night and leaving Fernley hoping for a shot at the No. 2 seed.
But Melendy needed only five of those 23 carries to define his night and decide the outcome of
Friday’s game. Melendy had touchdown runs of 80, 67, 68 and 22 yards, and another run of 43
yards that set up a touchdown run by Matthew Bird, accounting for 280 of his 357 yards on just
five plays.
Even so, the Vaqueros were feeling good about themselves after opening the second half with a
10-play, 75-yard drive to cut Fallon’s lead to 21-15. That is, until Melendy ripped off his third
touchdown of the night, the 68-yarder that put the lead back to 27-15.
“I’m my mind I’m like, cool, we just scored, let’s get a stop, let’s get a punt, let’s go down and
score again,” Fernley coach Anfernee Sloan said. “Then I think that last long one, it might have
been the final gut punch there.”
After that, Fernley managed just one first down on its last four possessions, while Melendy
added another touchdown and Fallon’s Alijah Juarez punctuated the night with a 15-yard fumble
return for a touchdown.
“That might honestly be the first time since I’ve been a head coach that I’ve had a team that just
kind of submitted,” Sloan said. “Like, they were just done when they knew they were out of the
race.”
When he got the ball in open space, Melendy made sure there was no race.
On the game’s first play from scrimmage from Fallon’s 20-yard line, he took a handoff straight
up the middle, hesitated slightly to let the hole open up, then burst through and was eight yards
ahead of the closest defender when he crossed the goal line 80 yards later.
Fernley answered with a 9-play 65-yard drive on its first possession, with 63 of the yards coming
on runs by Keeshawn Love, who scored on a 13-yard touchdown. After a penalty against Fallon
on the extra point, the Vaqueros went for a two-point conversion and made it to take an 8-7 lead.
On the first play of Fallon’s second possession, Melendy took a handoff designed to go to his
left, cut back to his right into the middle and again found nothing but an empty field in front of
him for a 67-yard touchdown to put Fallon back on top 14-8.
The teams traded punts for the next five possessions, but Melendy started Fallon’s fifth drive
with a 43-yard run to the Fernley 26, and six plays later, Bird ran it in from six yards out to make
it 21-8 at the half.
But after thinking they were back in the game with their opening drive of the third quarter,
everything caved in on the Vaqueros.
“That’s long runs. Can’t have that,” Sloan said. “You do the thing the right way like you’re
taught to do it, those plays don’t happen.”
The Vaqueros will try to bounce back Friday night at Lowry, where they will have to try to stop
Erick Valencia, who had a night similar to Melendy’s against them last year, running for 222
yards and six touchdowns in a game that Fernley won 79-47.
“That’s going to be a good opportunity to kind of test our guys and see how it is that we can
respond,” Sloan said. “I told them this is life. Everything’s going to be fine and dandy and happy,
but something knocks you off your stool, how are you going to respond?”
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