BAILEYTON — The West Greene Buffaloes’ opening game did not go how they had planned, yet they were able to come away with a 32-16 win on Friday night at North Greene.
The Buffs fumbled on their first drive in the red zone, had back to back false starts and then fumbled into a safety on drive two, and they also lost Zachery Diltz to injury.
With four minutes left in the third quarter and the game tied at 16, Diltz left the game in an ambulance with an apparent neck injury.
After the game, West Greene coach Evan Monroe said Diltz will be fine and his teammates rallied to win for him.
“You have something crazy like that happen, it’s always nice to see our guys come out and rally and play hard for their brother,” Monroe said. “From what I understand, he’s going to be OK. He’s getting checked out right now.
“It is tough. But I’m incredibly proud of how our guys responded. We found ourselves down two scores early but once we settled in and started playing our brand of football, we rattled off 32 straight points. I can’t say anything negative about our guys other than the first eight minutes of the game. But once we settled in and started playing, it was a gritty win for our guys.”
Things looked bleak for the Buffs from the opening kickoff when the Huskies’ Brandon Weems returned it 65 yards for a touchdown. The two-point conversion failed and North Greene led 6-0.
West Greene’s first drive started with quarterback Austin Franklin taking it 54 yards to the North Greene 6. On the next play, though, the Buffs fumbled and North Greene’s Kelson Eastep recovered.
West Greene’s next drive began at its 17, but two false starts backed them up inside their 5. A second fumble recovered in the end zone by Franklin resulted in a safety, putting North Greene up 8-0.
North Greene took the ensuing kickoff and churned out a 55-yard scoring drive. The drive was capped by a 14-yard pass from Thomas Darnell to Jake Duffy in the back of the end zone. And a successful two-point conversion made it 16-0 with 7:09 left in the first quarter.
“I can’t say what I was thinking,” Monroe said, laughing about the rough start. “But we told the guys all week, ‘Something’s going to go wrong. It’s football. That’s what happens. When adversity hits us, how do we respond?’ We kinda came out and got punched in the mouth, but for us to come back and respond in the way we did, it was just a great win.”
Midway through the second quarter, West Greene caught a break on a blocked punt that ricocheted straight up and was caught by Skyler Shelton at the North Greene 17.
Franklin took it to the 5-yard line on the first play and scored on the second, diving for the pylon. A successful two-point conversion pulled the Buffs within 16-8.
After forcing a fumble on North Greene’s next drive, West Greene marched 52 yards with Braden McCamey scoring on 2-yard dive up the middle. Franklin added the two-point conversion to tie it 16-16 with 1:42 left in the half.
Neither team scored in the third, but had long drives. It was a stalemate when Diltz’s injury occurred.
After an hour-long delay, West Greene scored on a 1-yard run by Franklin to open the fourth and a successful two-point conversion pushed the Buffs ahead 24-16.
North Greene went three-and-out on its next possession, and West Greene started with good field position at the Huskies’ 41.
From there, the Buffs stormed down the field and scored on a 13-yard run up the middle by Dillon Teston, who went untouched for the first 12 yards. Shelton converted the two-pointer, making it 32-16 with 4:55 left.
“Skyler, Teston, Franklin – those guys run the ball hard,” Monroe said. “But it starts up front with those big guys. A lot of those big guys play both ways, so they’re gassed. Man, I’m so proud of that group up front. North Greene gave it everything they had and we just pounded the rock.”
On the other side, North Greene’s powerful run game was rendered obsolete in the second half and couldn’t do anything in the final minutes.
After watching film on North Greene this past week, Monroe said the Buffs’ goal was to contain the run. And while they struggled to do that in the first half, they were able to bottle up North Greene’s powerhouse back Yeshua Vaught, and ultimately neutralize the run game.
“We knew (Vaught) wanted the ball out of the backfield so we preached to the D-line, ‘Stay home if you get a free release,’” Monroe said. “We knew they liked to do the hitch to (Duffy). Our guys bought into what we were selling this week.”
Franklin ran for 190 yards and two TDs on 18 carries. Shelton had 75 yards on 20 carries and Teston had 50 yards a TD on eight carries.
Franklin completed two of five passes, both to McCamey, for 11 yards with an interception.
Defensively, West Greene’s Damion Santelle had eight tackles, Alex Johnson had five, McCamey had four, and Diltz and Shelton each had three. Leland Payne and Teston both recovered a fumble, McCamey and Franklin had interceptions, and Isaiah Roberts had a blocked punt.
North Greene coach Eric Tilson put the loss on himself.
“I don’t feel like I called a very good game tonight,” he said. “It’s like the game was a little bit ahead of me and I couldn’t catch up on it. I didn’t put our kids in a very good position tonight. Ultimately that falls on me. We gotta go back to the drawing board.
“We showed some signs that we can make the big plays but how consistently can we do it? We have to be able to sustain and weather a storm like that.”
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