Broncos football shellacks Kettle Falls in season's final game

The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos football team ended its season on a high note, routing the Kettle Falls Bulldogs 54-6 at home on Nov. 2.

The Broncos asserted their dominance early in the game, leading 21-0 after the first quarter and 34-6 at halftime. The Broncos scored three more touchdowns in the second half to put the game completely out of reach for the Bulldogs, who play in the North Division of the Northeast 2B Conference.

Quarterback Bryce Kelly got things started for LRS in his final game as a Bronco, finding his brother Drew Kelly for a 16-yard touchdown pass. The Kelly-to-Kelly connection wasn’t done yet though, as the elder Bryce found the younger Drew later in the quarter for a 15-yard touchdown pass. The younger Drew was even able to convert a pass to his older brother, which head coach Greg Whitmore said was a designed play.

“We were trying to do a few things to make it fun in his last game,” said Whitmore.

The Broncos did most of their damage on the ground against the Bulldogs, a welcomed reversal after the team struggled to run the ball during much of the regular season. Of the Broncos’ 50 offensive plays in the game, 39 of those plays were rushing attempts while just 11 were passes. The Broncos ran for 281 yards on those 39 rushes, averaging 7.2 yards per rush.

“We’ve always wanted to run the ball and this was our effort emphasize the ground game,” said Whitmore. “We executed on that front, so I was pleased with that. Hopefully it’s something we can build on. We wanted to give a lot of different people opportunities, because our young guys haven’t gotten to play as much. It was a good chance to get kids in that deserved to get in.”

Running back Austin Thompson had two of those rushing touchdowns, one for 20 yards in the second quarter and another for nine yards in the third quarter. Conrad Ziemer also had two rushing touchdowns in the game, for 22 and 48 yards respectively. Ziemer had 105 rushing yards on 13 attempts, while Thompson had 73 rushing yards on nine attempts.

Even wide receiver Shontz Yaeger got in on the rushing bonanza, taking his one rushing attempt 15 yards for a touchdown. Carson Ayers had the final score of the night for the Broncos early in the fourth quarter, running the ball into the endzone from seven yards out. In all, 11 LRS players had at least one rushing attempt in the game, while five players had at least three or more rushes.

On the flip side of things, the Broncos defense was dominant against the run, allowing just 77 rushing yards on 33 attempts, an average of 2.3 yards per rush. The Bulldogs completed just one of their nine third down attempts, and one of their three fourth down attempts. The Broncos were only two of nine on third down attempts, but converted three of their five fourth down attempts.

Kettle Falls was also 0-5 in the passing game, with one of those passes being intercepted by Yaeger. The Broncos won the turnover battle 2-1, recovering a fumble while also giving up a fumble. In addition, the Broncos weren’t forced to punt at all in the game.

This year’s Broncos team graduates eight of its 26 players, including Bryce Kelly and Yaeger. The team is tentatively returning five juniors, nine sophomores and four freshman from the team.

“We were obviously short on players this year, and we’re already looking to next year,” said Whitmore. “The good news for us is there’s good numbers at the junior high level.”

The seventh and eighth grade junior high school team didn’t lose a game this year, and they had 32 kids turn out in just the two grades alone. Whitmore hopes that they’ll be able to turn out at least a dozen freshman for next year’s team, giving them a chance to field a junior varsity team and allow underclassmen to get more gametime experience.