Westmoore comes back to throttle Yukon
THE OKLAHOMAN | NEWSOK.COM
MOORE – Sometimes, simple is better. It certainly was for Westmoore on Friday night against Yukon.
Only five Jaguars carried or caught the football, but they did enough to lift No. 7-ranked Westmoore out of an early 14-point hole and give it a 35-14 win over No. 6 Yukon at Moore Schools Stadium in a game most experts believed to be critical to both teams’ Class 6AI playoff hopes.
Tailback Chris Oliver had 21 carries for 157 yards and two touchdowns for Westmoore (5-2, 3-1 6AI-1), while Jacob Clark caught seven passes for 122 yards and a touchdown and sophomore quarterback Dayton Wolfe completed 10 of 15 passes for 143 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another score.
Just as important, Westmoore took advantage of three turnovers by Yukon (4-3, 1-3), two of which came late as the Millers tried desperately to come from behind, something that can be difficult to do with their runheavy flexbone offense.
“This was the only game on the schedule,” Westmoore coach Lorenzo Williams said. “We took all of the rest of the games off the schedule. This was the only one. We had to win this one and win it big. The kids understood it. Sometimes, you don’t want to put that much pressure on the guys, but it is what it is.”
For one quarter, Yukon could do no wrong. The Millers had nine first downs and ground out a 93-yard touchdown drive in the first quarter, with Antonio Washington scoring on an 11-yard run. After a three-and-out by Westmoore, the Millers marched 55 yards for another score, with quarterback Jackson Young scoring on a 1-yard run on the first play of the second quarter.
But after that, the Jaguars limited Yukon to only three first downs the rest of the way. Yukon finished with only 235 yards of offense.
Yukon “does a great job with that offense,” Williams said. “It’s something that you don’t see often, but (defending it) is all about doing your job. If guys do their job, we’ve got a chance to be great. After the first quarter, we got a chance to see it and then guys started locking in. That’s kids growing up right there.”
Runs of 25 and 29 yards by Oliver set up a 1-yard scoring run by Wolfe in the second quarter and Wolfe hit Jaquan Richardson on a 12-yard touchdown pass 59 seconds before halftime to tie the game. That score came after Westmoore’s Jordan Hampton recovered a Yukon fumble at the Millers’ 35.
Westmoore took its first lead on a 15-yard run by Oliver with 4:51 left in the third quarter, and he followed with a 10-yard touchdown run before the quarter ended, making it 28-14. Yukon turned the ball over on downs at its own 34 in the fourth quarter, leading to a 16-yard touchdown catch by Clark with 7:20 left to seal the win.
“The plan today was to get the ball in our athletes’ hands and give them the space,” Williams said. “We found the run game … and once we found it, we could move the ball a little bit.”
Yukon’s top rusher was Isaiah Butler, who carried nine times for 76 yards, but most of those yards came in the first quarter. The Millers have lost three straight games after a 4-0 start and will host No. 1 Broken Arrow next Friday.