TORRINGTON – It took only two plays for the Torrington Trailblazers to get on the scoreboard Friday night in a 60-6 drubbing of the Gering, Neb. Bulldogs.
A holding penalty and a bad snap on the first two plays of the game led to a quick safety for the Blazers to put them in front 2-0 less than 30 seconds into the contest.
“It was one of those situations where if you could get up on them early and not give them any momentum, you’d have a pretty good chance tonight,” THS coach Mark Lenhardt said.
From there the rout was on.
Following the free kick, it took two minutes before the Blazers were back in the end zone.
Bryan Lemmon capped off the 38-yard drive with an 11-yard run.
By the final horn, the senior running back accounted for six of Torrington’s scores.
“When Bryan gets in the secondary, he’s a tough guy to bring down,” Lenhardt said. “Bryan’s a great player, and we are going to try to utilize his skills anyway we can. He’s probably the most versatile guy I’ve ever had who can do a lot of different things. We ask a lot of him.”
Lemmon rushed for 213 yards on 17 attempts and four touchdowns. He also caught one pass for 80 yards and a score while throwing a 17-yard pass for a score to his brother Jared Lemmon.
However, it wasn’t just a Bryan Lemmon show Friday evening at Wiseman Field.
Eight Blazers tallied at least one carry, while Josh Posten and Trace Floyd also found the end zone on the ground.
“When I think about what we did well tonight, I thought there was a lot of good things up front,” Lenhardt said. “I thought our guys blocked well. I thought our backs ran hard for the most part. The cool part about tonight, everyone contributed.”
In all, Torrington racked up 504 yards of offense.
The Blazers didn’t have to punt all game, committed no turnovers and limited Gering to 92 yards of offense.
“(Gering) tried running a lot of lead zone at us and were double teaming our defensive tackle. Braden Meecham has come so far in a year,” Lenhardt said. “When you look at our secondary, (Gering) tried a double move and Cade Schwartzkopf played it well. They tried a toss pass and Josh Posten got over the top and broke it up. I thought Jared Lemmon made some nice plays.”
Josh Kingsley led the Blazer defensive attack with 23 points, including three unassisted tackles two sacks, two assisted tackles and a fumble recovery. Meanwhile the Lemmon twins tallied three unassisted tackles each.
Despite all the positives, Lenhardt says there are still areas of work that need to be done.
“I don’t know why I keep calling a no-huddle, quarterback sneak. We haven’t got it two weeks in a row,” Lenhardt said. “That is an area where we need some growth. There are some procedural things.”
Now the attention of the Blazers turns to Green River, the team which Torrington defeated to reach the 3A State Championship game a year ago.
“I’m sure that is still on a lot of their kids’ minds,” Lenhardt said. “They will be ready to come play us. It’s going to be a fun football game. We wanted to schedule some out of state opponents and play some bigger schools and really test ourselves before the conference season.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Wiseman Field.
