Redskins Tame Tigers

Liberal won their 10th straight over Guymon 28-0 Friday night at in front of a big crowd at renovated Redskin Field. Junior quarterback Slader McVey ran for 81 yards and two touchdowns and tossed another TD as LHS improves to 1-1. Sophomore linebacker Cesar Ontiveros recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass helping the Redskin defense hold Guymon to 131 yards. Liberal senior fullback Kyle Potts says that was more like it. “The team actually came out and came together tonight,” Potts said. “The offense finally moved the ball down the field and got the ball in the endzone and it felt good. The defense stepped up again big tonight. We just have to have that every week and we’ll be fine.” Head coach Wade Standley earned his first win a Liberal’s head coach. Even though it was Guymon’s 15th straight loss, Standley says his team took a step forward. “It’s a good win,” Standley said. “I told the kids let’s get better. We made some improvement. There’s certainly things that we obviously have to work on. It’s a great building block to continue to go forward and be ready for next week.”

Liberal lost three first half fumbles but forced three Guymon turnovers. Ontiveros came away with two turnovers and Blake Abbott recovered a fumble.

Liberal scored first when McVey tossed a jump ball to the northeast endzone to Jade Cathey who made a leaping grab for a 13 yard touchdown with 3:37 to play in the first quarter. McVey bumped into his running back and then ran left for a 41 yard touchdown after a key block by Tyson Deaton. The run came with 4:33 remaining in the second half. Guymon quarterback Colter Headrick found Braxton Dain for a 64 yard play to the Liberal 15 with 26 second left in the half. Guymon advanced the ball to the seven but didn’t have any timeouts and threw an interception to Ontiveros at the end of the half. In the second half, Liberal went to the ground and McVey scored on a five yard boot leg run with 5:20 remaining third quarter. Senior running back Charles Turner’s two yard plunge with 2:43 remaining in the game gave Liberal their fourth score. Jesse Quintero connected on all four PAT’s.

Liberal faces Hays Friday at Redskin Field. Senior linebacker Blake Abbott says next thing is next. “It was good to get this win tonight,” Abbott said of the Guymon win. “We have to get ready for Hays. They’ve got the new coach (Ryan Cornelsen). He’s a good coach. They have some talent. They’ll be ready for us but we will too.”

LHS graduate Ryan Cornelsen brings 2-0 Hays to town Friday for a 7:00 p.m. WAC opener.