Sweet Water celebrates homecoming with blowout

Published 12:37 am Saturday, September 27, 2008

SWEET WATER — The Bulldogs (5-0, 4-0) picked up a 78-0 homecoming win over regional foe J.F. Shields Friday night to extend the school record winning streak to 32 games.

“I don’t know what we took away from it,” Sweet Water head coach Stacy Luker said. “Offensively we got eight snaps in. We didn’t get anybody hurt. That’s a plus.”

The Panthers took the opening possession of the game and lost 14 yards on its first two plays before electing to punt on third down with the ball on their own 13-yard line. The decision appeared to set the tone for the remainder of the night as Sweet Water utilized two plays to take the ball 56 yards for the opening score. The drive culminated with a 15-yard pass from Randy Jackson to Tate Luker.

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The Panthers then fumbled on the first play of the ensuring possession. After Chris Landrum recovered the loose ball, he was rewarded with the five-yard touchdown carry that wrapped up the two-play, 27-yard drive and pushed the scored to 14-0.

Two plays into its next possession, Ryan Preston ran down the Panther quarterback in the end zone for a safety to up the lead to 16-0. Johnny Lockett took the following safety kick 65 yards for a score to leave the Bulldogs with a 23-0 lead.

Two plays later, Delano Brewer recovered a fumble and returned it for a touchdown to leave the game at 30-0.

Sweet Water continued its domination when Lockett took the ball 64 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the next Bulldog possession, upping the score to 37-0. Antonio Landrum later scored on a 24-yard pass from Jackson before Tyrice Lockett recovered a fumble in the end zone to give Sweet Water the 51-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Stacy Luker inserted his reserve offense in the second quarter, effectively throwing the game into cruise control. Michael Thompson scored two rushing touchdowns in the period while Jeremy Bouler added one to leave the Bulldogs with a 72-0 lead at intermission.

The teams set the game clock to six minutes in the third and fourth quarters, neglecting to stop it for changes of possession and incomplete passes. The Bulldogs twice pushed the ball inside the Panther 20-yard line and inserted the field goal unit on both occasions.

“Both. A whole lot of the both of it is involved,” Stacy Luker said when asked whether his decision to insert the kicking team in the red zone was related to a desire to prevent running up the score or to work on improving the kicking game. “We needed to work on field goals and I was intending on not scoring 80.”

The Bulldog kicking unit ended the night a perfect 10-for-10 on extra-point attempts and connected on both of its field goal tries.

Luker said his team will likely turn up the intensity in practice over the coming week in an effort to make up for the snaps lost by the first unit.

“We’ll look at Frisco on film and determine it from there,” he said of preparation for the Bulldogs’ next opponent.

Lockett needed only three carries to tally 116 of the team’s 295 total rushing yards. Thompson added 76 yards on just seven attempts. Conversely, the Bulldog defense allowed -99 yards of total offense to J.F. Shields. That total sits one yard shy of the school record for least yardage allowed.