Bethany unkind host to Jackets

Jeff Myers hoped he was wrong, but he could almost see last Friday night coming.

“You play like you practice,” Myers repeated a couple of times after his Kingfisher squad was handed a 40-6 thumping at the hands of Bethany on the road.

“Our week of preparation showed tonight.”

Myers’ teams have been beaten before and they’ve been beaten badly before. He said he knows when to pull moral victories from big losses against superior teams.

He wasn’t searching for them after his squad dropped to 1-2.

“They’re a good team and I think they’ll go deep in the 4A playoffs just like last year,” said Myers of Bethany, the 2018 state runner-up that is ranked anywhere from No. 1 to No. 4 in Class 4A, depending on the poll.

“But they’re not 34 points better than us. We looked like a junior high team with some of the mistakes we made on both sides of the ball.”

Bethany out-gained the Jackets 477-226 and had 23 first downs to the Jackets’ six.

The Bronchos put up 302 rushing yards and averaged more than six yards a carry.

“I was disappointed in our effort and really disappointed in our tackling on the defensive side,” Myers said.

The game swung in the second quarter when Bethany scored twice in the final six minutes for a 27-6 halftime lead.

After seeing Bethany go up 14-0, the Jackets answered with a quick 47-yard touchdown drive.

Quarterback Cade Stephenson scampered for a 36-yard gain to the Broncho 14 and Caleb Dick took it the remaining distance on the next play, pulling KHS within 14-6 with 10:07 to go in the half.

“I felt we were in good shape there,” Myers said. “We got down, but we’ve done that before and climbed back into games. That’s what I felt we were doing here with our touchdown.”

But Kingfisher’s momentum didn’t carry this time.

Bethany came back with an 80-yard drive that chewed four minutes off the clock. The Bronchos twice converted third-and-long plays and went up 21-6 after quarterback Sam Brandt’s 7-yard touchdown run with 5:59 remaining.

After forcing Kingfisher to punt, the Bronchos started yet another drive on their own 20.

This time they were bolstered by a fake punt near midfield after Kingfisher’s defense seemingly got a stop.

Instead, Ben Lawson took the snap and gained enough for a first down, elongating the drive. It culminated when Brandt lobbed a perfect pass to Payton Tolle for a 13-yard score with 6.6 seconds showing on the second-quarter clock.

“Just a couple of letdowns and the game completely swung in their favor,” Myers said. “That’s what good teams do. They take advantage of their opportunities and they did that.”

Up by three scores, the Bronchos controlled the clock with the ground game in the second half.

Brandt and running back Nathan Jones did much of the damage.

Brandt kept it 17 times and racked up 138 yards, including a 3-yard TD run in the third quarter.

Jones got 17 opportunities and turned them into 110 yards. He had a 9-yard scoring run on Bethany’s first drive of the game.

Brandt added another 175 yards on 12-of-23 passing. He threw for two TDs, including a 47-yard score to Jocelyn Malaska to put his team up 14-0 early in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Kingfisher’s offense peppered in a few big plays, but was unable to mount any kind of comeback.

The Jackets were hurt in the second quarter when starting center Sebastian Orozco was injured playing defense. His injury, likely an ACL tear, kept him out of the rest of the game.

The changes up front led to a handful of procedure penalties until the new Jacket line adjusted. Overall, the Jackets were penalized nine times for 45 yards.

They also had two possessions in the second half end with turnovers.

Stephenson threw for 95 yards, hitting five of his 11 attempts. He added 78 yards on 16 carries.

Dick ran the ball 10 times for 33 yards.

Four different receivers caught passes. Jarret Bird-well, two catches for 73 yards, was the only one with multiple receptions.

Keaton Abercrombie, who blocked a Bethany field goal attempt in the second half, led the defense with 13 total tackles.

T.J. Parker added 11 and Riley Myers eight. Two of Myers’ tackles were for a loss, including a sack.

Only one stat mattered to Myers, however, and that was the final score.

“Overall, it was not a good showing for our team,” he said.

The Jackets, 1-2 for the second straight year, now turn their attention to their District 3A-1 slate beginning this week at Blackwell.

The Maroons are also 1-2.

After opening the season with losses to Tonkawa (36-34) and Perry (55-12), they defeated Newkirk 56-12 last week.

“We’re going to spend some time working on Blackwell this week because we aren’t good enough to overlook anyone,” Myers said. “But we’re also going to spend a lot of time looking at ourselves in the mirror and working on the Kingfisher Yellowjackets.

“Although we go into district with the same record as last year, we have to make sure we’re all on the same page and going in the same direction or it’s going to be really tough to make this season end up the way we did last year.”