Broncos continue to battle for league championship

On Friday night there were three teams in the Broncos’ league with undefeated seasons including LRS, the Reardan Indians and the Colfax Bulldogs. On Saturday morning, there would only be one team who could claim that title.

The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos secured their position at the top of the league by defeating Reardan 7-6 in a tough game on the Indians home turf.

With Colfax falling 19-48 to Davenport the Broncos are in a good position to be the champions in their league this year.

Friday night’s game saw two old rivals facing off on the gridiron.

“They’re usually a blood bath, very physical and that was no different,” Head Coach Greg Whitmore said.

The Bronco defense again kept them in the game and prevented the Reardan offense from capitalizing at key moments.

“In the end I was awfully, awfully proud of them, they went through a war for 48 minutes and they gutted it out and never gave an inch,” Whitmore said.

The Bronco defense would hold the Indians back from scoring after a long run early in the first quarter.

Then the Bronco offense would put together a drive at the end of the first quarter that would result in Andrew Witt running for the Broncos first and only touchdown early in the second quarter.

Matt Leffel secured the extra point for the Broncos and the defensive battle continued with the Indians being held scoreless for the rest of the half.

Dan Peone would have a 76-yard run in the third quarter to score for the Indians but the Bronco defense was able to hold back the two-point conversion attempt.

The Broncos would attempt a field goal later in the game but were unable to extend their lead on the Indians.

Late in the fourth quarter the Broncos took over on offense and created a drive to keep Reardan’s offense on the sidelines.

Hugh Hennings would have a big run to secure a Bronco first down and after the offense pushed for another 10 yards the Broncos would run out the clock and defeat the Indians by one point.

With another victory under their belt, the Broncos host Kettle Falls on Friday, Oct. 24.

Whitmore plans to use that game to prepare some of the reserve players to take on the Colfax Bulldogs on Oct. 31 and to rest players with injuries.

The Broncos will be short four starting players who will be traveling to FFA nationals to compete there. The Broncos will also be missing Tyler O’Brien, who broke his collarbone during the Reardan game, for the remainder of the season.

“There’ll be a lot of different faces on the field this Friday after we honor our seniors,” Whitmore said.

Despite this he expected they would be able to beat Kettle Falls and continue their march to the league championship title.

“They’ve been struggling,” he said, “They’re ninth out of ten schools, Springdale beat them, they’re beat up a little bit <and> kinda young and inexperienced so I’d certainly hope that we could handle them.”