The Bristow Pirates bested The Kellyville Ponies in a tough 42-16 game that gave the Ponies their first loss of the season.
Kellyville, coming off a 4-0 record against an undefeated Perry last week, simply found that the same plays that won their games previously weren’t holding up this time.
While in the past Hutchins would be able to put ten and fifteen yards at a time on each down, that only worked if the line could give him a hole to run through. Tonight, the Kellyville offensive line was met with a tougher Bristow defensive line.
Everything about Bristow was bigger. The players were older, more mature and there were more of them. Even their band was larger. They used that to their advantage. While Bristow could easily change out players on a regular basis, Kellyville, with it’s shallower roster, didn’t have that luxury.
What it really came down to was that Bristow exploited the weaknesses that Kellyville had. Kellyville’s advantage has been their ability to hand the ball off to Hutchins (No. 3) or Pickering (No. 11) and then clear a path for them to move down the field. Bristow seemed to understand that to stop those two was to stop the progress, and they did it.
Add to that that Bristow’s offense had a better passing game than Kellyville, and it explains how they were able to get the points where they were.
That’s not to say that the Ponies didn’t work hard—they did. The pushed and scratched and clawed to get those yards, only instead of ten and fifteen yards at a time, they were getting three and five yards at a time.
Hutchins was still the offensive workhorse in this game, but the Kellyville offense just couldn’t stand up to the Bristow defense.
Kellyville Defense had a strong showing towards the end of the second quarter, with two back-to-back sacks.
Kellyville Offense showed up in the second half, firing out of the gate with a kickoff return that led to a touchdown, putting Kellyville at 7 to Bristow’s 21.
But for every step forward that Kellyville took, it seemed that Bristow took one or more. The next possession, they scored again, bringing their score to 28. Kellyville made good use of their next possession, with a beautiful pass that gave them another touchdown. The victory looked like it would continue when Kellyville’s defense managed to hold off Bristow to a turnover. The momentum screeched to a halt though, when Kellyville threw an interception. Bristow took that ball and ran it right into the endzone, bringing the score to 14 to 35.
Fourth quarter brought on a quick touchdown for Bristow, which now stood at 42. Another fumble gave the Bristow the chance to lead Kellyville all the way back down the field, but the touchdown was called back for a holding penalty, which gave Kellyville a safety, resulting in the final score of 16-42.
Tonight’s standout player was number 82, Carson Beem, who showed promise as he carried the ball to the 10 yard line with 4 Pirates hanging on him. Would like to see more of him in the future as an alternate to Pickering and Hutchins, when they need the break.
Kellyville is still having a better season than they’ve had in a long time, and it’s not over yet. If they can step up their passing game, and find a way to compensate for such a shallow roster, they can continue a season that started great and will finish strong.
Kellyville does not play next week. They’ll play Beggs at home on October 6th.
See the Post-Game report below:
