While a game played about 125 miles away determined their playoff seeding, Fernley High
School football coach Anfernee Sloan was listening for something else when the Vaqueros took
the field last Friday night in Winnemucca.
Coming off a loss to Fallon the previous Friday in which he felt his team didn’t respond well to
adversity, Sloan had one question on his mind. Would his team answer when the phone rang?
A dominating performance told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
“From the very first kick to the last play of the game, everything was executed,” Sloan said. “The
seniors, I’m very proud of how it is they’re their taking their approach, the preparation and going
and executing when the phone was ringing.”
The Vaqueros jumped all over Lowry early, intercepting a pass by Lowry quarterback Connor
Peterson on the first play of the game. Five plays later, Riley McCullar scored on a 21-yard run
to give Fernley an early 7-0 lead.
Fernley also scored on its second, third and fourth drives, on a 4-yard run by Jayden Scripilliti, a
21-yard pass from Brye Stephens to McCullar and a 65-yard run by Keeshawn Love to take a 27-
0 lead in the second quarter.
Stephens, Love and Nathan Pritchard each added touchdown runs to account for the final 47-0
margin, but Sloan had seen what he wanted to see before the first half even ended.
The only drama of the game came in the final minute, when Lowry threatened to break up
Fernley’s shutout. With backups on the field, the Buckaroos drove to the Fernley 4-yard line, but
o the last play of the game, Scripilliti intercepted a pass in the end zone to preserve the shutout.
“For those guys to get that opportunity to go out there and execute and make that big time play
against the starting offense, that says everything,” Sloan said. “Very proud of those guys, happy
for them, that they got the opportunity.”
Despite the win, the Vaqueros saw their hopes of being the No. 2 playoff seed come to an end
when Elko beat Fallon 31-28. Elko will be the No. 1 seed unless it loses to Spring Creek this
week, in which case Fallon would be the No. 1 seed with a win over Lowry. Even if both teams
were to lose, they both hold tiebreakers over Fernley.
That means Fernley is locked in as the No. 3 seed unless they lose to Dayton. As the No. 3 seed,
Fernley would host Lowry at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30.
With this week’s game against Dayton, and the first-round playoff game likely against Lowry, the
Vaqueros have two weeks to continue to tune up for a potential second round matchup with
Fallon.
“Whether it’s Elko, whether it’s Lowry, whether it’s Dayton, it could be the New England
Patriots,” Sloan said. “We’re going to put the football down, we’re going to prepare that we’re
going to go in and win the football game. We’re going to treat it as the Super Bowl next week.”
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