Welch smothers Watts on opening night
■ The Wildcats opened the season with a 42-14 win against the Engineers.
WATTS, Okla. — The Watts Engineers opened up the 2017 football campaign by taking a shellacking at home courtesy of the visiting Welch Wildcats.
Welch took a 12-point lead into the half before running away with a 42-14 win on Friday night.
The evening started well enough for Watts, which recovered a Welch fumble on the opening drive of the game and scored on their ensuing possession off of a 20-yard run by senior Danny Fernandez. Fernandez spent the
game splitting snaps with sophomore Aaron Mitchell behind center and running the ball.
Welch would strike back on their next possession when senior quarterback Gunner Johnson broke off a 45-yard run to bring the Wildcats within two. While the PAT was not successful, Welch would score 28 more unanswered points before Watts found the end zone again.
“Obviously, we’d like to win them (non-district games), but we’re working toward district and getting better,” said Watts head coach Matt Stilwell. “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Watts (0-1) struggled to get the offense rolling in the upcoming drives, as the Engineers’ only two touchdowns came in the first quarter and the fourth quarter, partially due to lost opportunities in shortyardage situations.
Stilwell said he was looking for his offensive line to step up in the next few games.
“That was one of our strong points last year, and we didn’t show much this year. We gotta step up as an offensive line as a whole where we can block and get our running game in a rhythm.”
“Overall, we played well as a team, except for fumbling the football,” said Ryan Gleaves, head coach of the Welch Wildcats (1-0).
The Wildcats committed four turnovers, all fumbles, three of which were in the first half. However, with the exception of the fumble on the opening drive, Watts failed to take advantage of any of the turnovers.
Gleaves also highlighted the play of Johnson, who had a hand in all of the Wildcats’ scores. Johnson ran for three of the team’s six touchdowns, and the other three touchdowns came from Johnson’s passes.
Friday’s game remained a close affair until the closing seconds of the second half. The Wildcats were up by a score of 14-8 after Johnson scored his second touchdown of the night and had gotten the ball back on 30 yard line. The Engineers pushed Welch to fourth down-and-four with 10 seconds remaining, with an eye on escaping to the locker room down by one score.
Johnson turned to Brace Welch, who he had thrown incompletions to in the two previous plays, and hit him for a 20-yard pass. The Wildcats called a quick timeout to stop the clock, and Johnson found a leaping Braxton Turner in the end zone on the next play to score with a single second remaining in the half.
Watts had a chance to climb back into the game a few possessions into the second half. The Engineers forced the fourth Wildcats fumble to stop a drive by the visitors that had reached Watts’ 28 yard line. Still only down by two scores, Watts took control and moved eight yards in the next two plays on runs from Kyle Woods and Fernandez.
Fernandez’s bid for a dive to move the chains only netted a single yard, prompting a fourth down with one yard to go. Fernandez took the ball up the middle again, but the Wildcats defensive line stood firm and drove Fernandez backwards to cause a turnover on downs.
Welch would take that momentum and turn it into scores on its next two drives. Watts responded with a second touchdown on a play where Fernandez ran a QB dive, but got spun around, fumbling into the end zone. Watts’ Lane Winningham jumped on the ball in the end zone, but lost it, and then A.J. Tucker dove onto the loose ball for the touchdown.
“We never gave up, we never stopped fighting, and that showed great leadership,” said Stilwell.
Watts will face Copan in an away game on Friday, Sept. 8. Welch will look to build on its win with a game against Oaks on Friday.