Farwell football squad cruises to 42-0 win

FARWELL — A Farwell High football team used to seeing its games unfold from ground level, took to the skies Friday against Seagraves, with positive results.

Farwell normally bowls opponents over with a lethal rushing attack. Friday, though, Seagraves worked hard to contain that running game, at least somewhat. So quarterback Leefe Actkinson burned the Eagles regularly by throwing the ball, which helped the Steers win their district opener — their fifth straight victory overall — by topping Seagraves 42-0 on a cold drizzly night at Farwell High School.

Actkinson passed for 223 yards and three touchdowns with no picks, as Farwell cruised.

“We had a little bit of adversity,” Steers head coach Danny Brittain said. “(The Eagles) were cramming it all in there. We’re a run-first team and they crammed everybody in there, so we had to throw the ball. And our kids caught the ball tonight and opened it back up, loosened it up for us. So I was real proud of our kids.”

“It’s a pretty big win,” Farwell senior receiver/cornerback Ramon Reyes said after making an incredible catch in the first quarter and coming up with an interception in the second. “It sets the tone for the rest of the district. They all know we’re out to get them.”

Aside from a relentless offense against Seagraves, Farwell’s defense played well throughout. Middle linebacker Sterling Henderson established the defensive complexion on Seagraves’ game-opening drive with a three-yard tackle-for-loss that the public address announcer called a “big whoopin’ hit”. And the Steers kept on whoopin’ toward the shutout.

Nose guard Trace Stancell preserved the defensive donut with a fumble recovery late in the fourth quarter, turning Seagraves’ most promising drive to dust.

An impressive defensive effort for sure. But oh, that offense.

The Steers actually came out on their first possession looking like their old selves, sticking mainly to the run. Except for a 13-yard pass from Actkinson to Reyes, the Steers’ other gains on the 60-yard touchdown march came from rushing the ball. Ricardo Ortega had the biggest run of the drive, a 15-yarder, cutting the Steers’ distance to the end zone in half by carrying them from the Seagraves 30 to the 15. An offsides penalty move them five yards closer, and they advanced eight more yards to the Seagraves 2 on a one-yard Actkinson run and a seven-yarder from Ortega.

It was then, however, that Seagraves’ defense began to stifle the run game, forcing no gains on the Steers’ next two plays. A five-yard penalty then knocked Farwell back to the 7 before Actkinson ran that distance for the touchdown on the following play.

Jose Rodriguez booted the first of six extra points, making it a 7-0 game with 6:30 to go in the first quarter.

Farwell’s second offensive series ended much quicker, thanks to a 61-yard touchdown pass from Actkinson to Rodriguez. The 6-foot-2 Rodriguez reached up to snare Actkinson’s pass at around the Seagraves 35-yard line, then swooped right to find daylight and eventually the end zone.

The last two plays of the first quarter seemed to be microcosms of how Farwell’s offense was phasing. The next-to-last play was a fade left from the Steers’ 48 in the direction of Reyes, who concentrated on the ball and then looked almost rubbery with the way he reeled it in.

“I just dove for it,” Reyes recalled, “and hoped I caught it.”

“He has good hands,” Brittain said. “He does a good job for us.”

But on the Steers’ final play of the quarter, Ortega — who is closing in on a 1,000-yard rushing season — was stopped for a three-yard loss by the stingy Seagraves run defense.

That drive continued into the second quarter and ended with Farwell turning the ball over downs at the Seagraves 32. The Steers’ next drive — fueled by a perfect right-sideline strike from Actkinson to Edgar Fierro that gained 39 yards — eventually fizzled at the Eagles’ 35.

It wasn’t long, though, before the Steers were able to score again, assisted by their defense.

Seagraves’ next possession ended just three plays in, when Reyes came up with a pick.

“I played good D, wouldn’t let anything get past me,” Reyes said. “I went for up for it and came down with it.”

Reyes’ interception set the Steers up at their own 43, where they began an eight-play touchdown drive that culminated with Actkinson throwing a 12-yard scoring pass to Henderson.

The Eagles drove to Farwell’s 30 on their next possession, a drive cut short when Fierro intercepted a pass he returned to the Seagraves 41. A four-yard Actkinson run, a 20-yard Actkinson pass to Hyland Foster and an 11-yard Foster run brought Farwell to the 6, and Leo Ruiz carried it in from there with just 33 seconds to go before halftime.

Actkinson threw a play-action touchdown pass to Rodriguez down the left sideline in the third quarter. And in the fourth, Jonathan Sotelo ran six yards for a score, putting an exclamation point at the end of Farwell’s dominant night.

The Steers are trending upward with their five-game win streak. Brittain, though, approaches their success with guarded optimism.

“We’re getting there,” Brittain said. “We still have some young kids that are making mistakes, and we’re trying to coach on the run.”