Thunder football runs over shorthanded Pacheco defense

Donte Askew collected the first handoff of the game and began accelerating toward the Buhach Colony sideline.

The Thunder senior won the foot race to the edge and turned up field. He sidestepped a defender and sprinted into the open field for a 72-yard touchdown 28 seconds into the game.

It didn’t matter who carried the ball for Buhach Colony on Friday night – the holes were plentiful, and the Veterans Stadium turf tended to be wide open.

The Thunder struck for three long touchdown runs on its first six plays en route to 463 rushing yards and a 60-13 thumping of Pacheco.

“When Donte breaks a big run on the second play of the game, it gives the rest of us backs a little fight,” said Alex Andrade, who ran for a team-high 121 yards on five carries. “We’re all trying to outscore and outgain each other, so it definitely fired us up.

“The credit really has to go to the O-line. They had a great week of practice and were the ones creating hole after hole. When they’re blocking like that, it makes things really easy for us backs.”

The Thunder (2-1) certainly seemed to make the most of an unexpected week off. Buhach’s game at Clovis North was canceled last Friday due to the poor air quality from a wildfire.

The Buhach offense looked particularly sharp, scoring on its first five possessions.

As badly as things went for the Panthers’ defense in the opening half, Pacheco (1-3) entered intermission with a little momentum.

The Panthers weren’t as efficient with their scoring but moved the ball in the opening half. Pacheco ran 47 plays to Buhach’s 18 and produced a solid 217 total yards behind Carlos Garcia (seven carries, 114 yards). In his first varsity start, sophomore quarterback Aric Barton (12 of 28 for 120 yards) took advantage of his defense’s first stop, leading a 58-yard scoring drive. Cody Allred punched it in from a yard out to make it a 36-13 game at the half.

“We knew coming into the season that the strength of this team was going to be the offense,” Panthers coach David Snapp said. “We moved the ball pretty well and had some things to build on going into halftime.

“We missed some opportunities, too, though. We turned the ball over on downs inside their 10. We had a touchdown pass called back for a chop block. Those are big momentum swings in a game, especially for a young team. Those are things that could have sent us into halftime right there in the game.”

The Buhach defense left no doubt after the break.

The Thunder limited Pacheco to 58 yards in the second half and forced four consecutive turnovers, including a Logan Lemas 27-yard interception return for a score, that led directly to 24 points.

“I thought our defense was incredibly focused tonight,” Thunder coach Kevin Navarra said. “They run the option very well, and you have to be very disciplined against it or you can get burned. I thought we played it consistently well.

“Game plan-wise, they did some things against us last year that gave us some real problems, so we adjusted a few things on offense to give them a few wrinkles. I told the kids I was very pleased that for the second game in a row they got on a team early and allowed us to get lots of reps for everyone.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 9:40 PM with the headline "Thunder football runs over shorthanded Pacheco defense."