Buckeye beats up Antelope 58-0

The Buckeye football team landed some early punches against Antelope.

By the end of the first quarter, the Rams were knocked out.

The Hawks jumped out to a huge lead early and cruised to a 58-0 win in Wellton on Friday night.

“I don't think we were overmatched. We just didn't show up. We came out flat. It's one of those things you can't explain. You can tell before the game even starts if your team's ready to go,” Antelope coach Dan Gardner said.

Antelope (1-2) junior quarterback Beto Castro went 8-for-16 for 44 yards and had several deep passes end up just out of the reach of receivers.

“He was right on with his passes all night,” Gardner said. “We had a couple of plays we could have made and we didn't make them.”

Senior running back Fred Pearson led the Rams with 36 rushing yards on 10 carries.

Antelope's modified spread offense struggled in the early parts of the game — mostly by shooting itself in the foot. On the Rams' opening drive, two bad shotgun snaps pinned them down on their own 1-yard line. After an incomplete pass by Castro, the Rams' punt was returned 38 yards for a touchdown by Buckeye's Jamarya Guy. Antelope fumbled the ensuing kickoff and the Hawks scored four plays later for a quick 14-0 lead.

Things got worse for the Rams on their next drive — the first two plays were bad shotgun snaps that resulted in a safety.

“In the beginning we couldn't get a snap. We went back 30 yards, we couldn't get a snap down,” Gardner said. Antelope spent the game switching from their modified spread and a compressed, double-tight end look. “We had to shuffle because of some injuries and academic stuff, we had to shuffle some guys around to spots they weren't used to. If we can't get a snap, we can't run our offense.”

After turning the ball over on downs on their next drive, Buckeye (4-0) needed just four plays to score three touchdowns — including a 76-yard touchdown run by Guy to make it 37-0 with 10 minutes left in the second quarter.

One bright spot for the Rams in the first half came midway through the second quarter, when Buckeye took the ball over on the Antelope 11-yard line. The Hawks pushed their way to the two, but Antelope forced a four-yard loss and on fourth-and-5, Ram junior Austin Mercer sacked the quarterback to force a turnover on downs.

In the fourth quarter, after a 1-yard touchdown run by Buckeye freshman Jacob Dawson gave the Hawks a 58-0 lead, Antelope once against fumbled the ensuing kickoff on the 26-yard line with 8:30 left to go in the game. Buckeye chose to spend the rest of the game — their final two drives — taking a knee.

“(Buckeye coach Bobby Barnes) was definitely meaning no disrespect, but I told the guys that they should take it as disrespect that they're taking a knee for an entire quarter, pretty much,” Gardner said. “I'd rather our guys to fight through it and not have them feel pity for us.”

Jesse Severson can be reached at jseverson@yumasun.com or at 539-6881.