Bulldogs pick up key road win at Lyman

Battling to keep their slim playoff hopes alive, the Lovell Bulldogs traveled to Uinta County Friday and edged the Lyman Eagles 16-14 for their first conference win of the season.

“I think Lyman’s a solid, solid team,” Lovell head coach Nicc Crosby said. “They’ve had a couple of good wins this year. They’re well coached. We get to get up before 5 o’clock in the morning, and the bus leaves at five. We drive down there, and I think (it’s) a lot to overcome. But our defense was outstanding. Our offense was consistent, moved the ball well, and we were able to get in the end zone a couple of times. Got a big boost by a long made field goal and made big plays at important moments in the game.

“I think with our current situation coming off some difficult losses, it would be easy to pack it in and look on to the future, but I’ve got to give a lot of credit to the players and coaches for sticking with it, overcoming some obstacles and getting a quality win on the road.”

Lyman took the opening kickoff and drove into Lovell territory with a determined ground game before the Bulldog defense rose up on fourth and one to stuff a running play, giving the ball to the Lovell offense.

“They’ve been better some years than others, but they’ve consistently been able to grind out a yard or two in short yardage situations, and I thought that (stop) really set the tone early to just stuff them on that fourth down attempt. Our defense just was solid all day long.”

The Bulldogs gave the ball back two plays later on a fumbled handoff, but Lyman turned the ball over on downs on an interception by Travis Asay.

Lovell put together a 66-yard scoring drive mixing running and passing plays before quarterback Kyson Crosby found an opening around right end and dashed 39 yards for a touchdown. The PAT kick missed, but Lovell led 6-0 with 11 seconds left in the first quarter.

“Joaquin (Scheeler, running back) did a really good job picking up the linebacker,” Crosby noted. “We opened up the initial hole, and then Gage Fink harassed the cornerback enough to let Kyson get the edge, and he took it the rest of the way from there.”

Lyman responded with a 55-yard drive that culminated with a 21-yard scoring pass over the middle. The successful PAT put the home team up 7-6.

“There’s a sweep play that they’ve been very successful on that we were really keyed up to, and they ran a play action off of it that we were out of position for, and they capitalized on it,” Crosby explained.

Not to be outdone, the Bulldogs drove 71 yards to score as Crosby hit Mac Morgan over the middle for 22 yards on third and eight to keep the drive alive, then, following a time out, fired a 21-yard touchdown pass on fourth and six to Kannon Owens. A penalty on the PAT moved the ball back five yards, but Rylan Oaks booted the extra point, putting Lovell up 13-7 with 2:34 left in the first half.

“We’ve run (the play) off and on, but we got it set up in the huddle how we wanted it to go, and we knew the coverage they were going to be in,” Coach Crosby said. “We cleared the safety out of the way and had Kannon on a post (route), who just put it in the end zone. Kannon went up and made a good catch. We had really good pass protection, as well.”

Lyman drove to the Lovell 30 in the final 2½ minutes of the half before time expired.

Second half

On the first series of the second half the Bulldogs drove to the Lyman 29 before giving the ball up on downs. Following an exchange of punts, Morgan picked off a Lyman pass, and the Bulldogs drove to the Lyman 22 before stalling. Oaks booted a 39-yard field goal, boosting the Lovell lead to 16-7 with 10:12 left in the game.

“You always want to punch into the end zone, but he had confidence,” Crosby said of Oaks. “As soon as we crossed the 50, I was asking which hash (mark) he would prefer to be on. There was a little bit of a wind from our left to the right, so he said he wanted to be on the left hash, and so we kind of worked it over that way, and he took care of business.”

In an odd set of circumstances, two consecutive kickoffs carried out of bounds, pushed by the wind, and the Eagles chose to have the Bulldogs kick again on both. On the third kick, the Lyman returner found a seam and went 85 yards to pay dirt, and with the PAT Lyman was back in the game trailing 16-14 with 9:51 left.

“They set up a wall on that side on their sideline. They execute it well,” Crosby said. “They did it earlier in the game, and we thought we had the adjustments for it, but didn’t execute it very well.

Lovell drove to the Bulldog 42 but were stymied on fourth down. The Bulldog defense rose up, however, putting great pressure on the Lyman quarterback and offense in general, with four bad snaps from center resulting in significant losses for the Lyman offense. Getting the ball back at their own 27 with 2:30 left, the Bulldogs moved the ball just eight yards, but Joaquin Scheeler boomed a 57-yard punt that rolled to the Lyman 8 with 1:12 left.

“He just angled it beautifully,” Crosby said. “They’d already had the kick return. We didn’t want them to get a punt return, and it was just a great, great punt that put them in a really bad spot. It kept rolling and went out of bounds inside the 10.”

The Eagles threw the ball on every play and managed to gain one first down at their own 30 before giving the ball over on downs, resulting in one Lovell kneel-down in victory formation.

Quarterback Crosby had a strong game for the Bulldogs. He carried the ball 18 times for 82 yards and completed 10 of 19 passes for 112 yards. Scheeler gained 51 yards on the ground on 10 carries. Nathan Cornia caught three passes for 42 yards, Morgan two for 30, Fink two for 10, Scheeler one for 9 and Owens one for 21.

Cokeville looms

Next up for the Bulldogs (2-3) is a conference home game against Cokeville Friday at 3 p.m. – the game time changed from the original 1 p.m. Cokeville is 5-1 overall, counting a zero week game, 4-0 in the 2A West coming off a 41-0 win over second-ranked Mountain View Friday, and the Panthers earlier won conference games against Lyman 27-6, Thermopolis 14-13 and Pinedale 35-7.

“Same old Cokeville, just older players, more experienced,” Crosby said. “This has got to be the largest senior class they’ve had in quite a while. They don’t make very many mistakes, and they take advantage of other people’s mistakes. Thermopolis played them to a 14 to 13 game where Thermop went for two to win at the end and didn’t get it, but then Cokeville ended up beating down their next two opponents. Lots of turnovers and mistakes gave Cokeville extra possessions, and they took advantage of it.”

Quarterback Kashton Walker (#10) is the leading rusher and passer for the Panthers, and Flint Linford (#5) is the top running back. Daxton Pope (#12) is Walker’s top passing target, catching some deep balls for long gains.

“People stack the box to try to stop their run and then lose track of guys down the field (on pass plays),” Crosby noted. 

Cokeville employs a 4-4 defense and can play both man and zone defenses against the pass.