There were a number of factors working against the Kemmerer High School football team during Friday night’s Homecoming contest against Lyman, not the least of which was the weather.
A lightning strike midway through the second quarter ground the game — and any Rangers momentum — to a sudden halt, and when action resumed nearly an hour later, the home team never quite recovered. A promising first half failed to translate to the second, as the visiting Eagles rolled to a 42-0 win.
“The second half definitely got away from us a little bit,” said KHS head coach Bart Jernigan. “It was the combination of a few things — special teams had a couple of errors, and that momentum got a little big for us. That’s a huge task for us this week — how do you keep the game in front of you, not allow it to get out of control. We’re definitely young, so we’re fighting some inexperience. We’re going to make some mistakes, and that’s OK; it’s how we respond to those mistakes, and how we keep a mistake from becoming multiple mistakes.”
The Rangers’ defense played relatively well in the first half, forcing punts on a couple of drives, and holding Lyman to 13 points by the break. The offense was unable to find a rhythm, however, as injuries and inexperience made it difficult to mount a successful attack.
That said, Jernigan was encouraged by his team’s resiliency in the face of adversity.
“The effort is there, as is the attitude,” Jernigan said. “The attitude is correct, and I appreciate our kids keeping a level head about themselves. I think a lot of times — when a game gets out of hand — you can find yourself doing things that are out of character. I was generally proud of our kids not allowing themselves to go there — fighting that urge. The frustration is palpable when you put the work in that these kids have put in, and they start to see things not go the way they want them to. I was proud of how they hung together, stuck together and held their composure throughout the course of the game. Now we have to grow on that execution piece of the puzzle — it’s good that we’re maintaining character, now we have to move on to how we respond to the other team making a play — what’s our answer, or what’s our response, in terms of our execution of our schemes.”
Rangers quarterback Sam Thatcher led the charge on offense, completing eight passes for 63 yards, though he was picked off twice; Noah Parks was his favorite target on the night, pulling in four of those passes for 40 yards. Marcus Reachel caught two passes for seven yards, while Haidyn McGuire and Heston McMillan each caught a pass for seven yards and eight yards, respectively.
Lyman’s run defense proved stout, holding the Rangers to negative yards on the ground.
The Rangers are on the road at Cokeville this week, squaring off against the 2-3 Panthers.
“We’re at Cokeville this week,” Jernigan said. “The big thing is, can we string together 48 minutes? Not allowing one mistake to become multiple. Can we keep the game in front of us, in terms of being competitive? We’re putting a lot of young kids on the field, and they’re growing as competitors. We may be a little bit outgunned — how do we not let that snowball? That mental skill is going to be big for us this week.”
As for what the Rangers need to do to be successful, Jernigan said establishing a running game will be key.
“Offensively, we need to establish our running game a little bit more — we didn’t do that very well against Lyman, and a lot of the credit goes to their defense,” he said. “Coach Anderson’s teams always play a level of defense that’s pretty fun to watch, as long as you’re not on the opposing sideline from him. Cokeville plays a similar style of defense, in terms of they will make you work for everything. We need to establish the run in order to take care of business. Defensively, it’s better execution of the fundamentals.”
