Less than a week after losing their opening game of the season on the road to Seminole 56-21, West Plains responded by cruising to a 63-14 win against Horizon Thursday at Mustang Bowl.
Both teams now sit at 1-1 as Horizon was coming off a 28-20 win against El Paso Socorro from Week one.
“Credit to our kids for keeping their nose down this week and we had a good week of work,” West Plains head coach Adam Cummings said. “I was proud of how our kids prepared for this game.”
West Plains’ lead was 49 points by halftime, and it didn’t take the Wolves long to get going.
The Wolves took advantage of two early turnovers by the Scorpions as West Plains cruised to a 21-0 lead first quarter lead.
An interception by West Plains’ Kane White-Tinsley on Horizon’s side of the field gave the Wolves good field position and soon led to a 1-yard touchdown run by Slade Russell. Gipson Gnagy’s extra point made it 7-0 with 10:23 left in the opening quarter.
Alex Lucero scored on a 2-yard touchdown to help double the Wolves’ lead with 8:53 remaining.
A fumble by the Scorpions was recovered by the Wolves and a few plays later, Reid Macon found the end zone on a 3-yard carry with 3:23 left.
“Got to give credit to our defense,” Cummings said. “We challenged them to come in and create turnovers. We talked about how we needed to get pressure on the quarterback. I felt like our defense did a good job of doing that. Our kids stepped up.”
Macon would score again, early in the second quarter, on a 1-yard run and Lawson Betancourt found the end zone shortly after to give the Wolves a commanding 35-0 lead with 8:09 remaining.
Two more scores from West Plains helped give them a 49-0 lead with under four minutes to go.
The Scorpions finally got on the board in the form of an interception that was returned for a touchdown by Alejandro Zavala to help make it 49-7 with 1:29 remaining.
The Wolves responded with a scoring drive right before the half, culminating with a touchdown pass from Macon to White-Tinsley and West Plains had a 56-7 advantage at the break.
The Wolves made it 63-7 by the end of the third quarter. The Scorpions added another touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“It was a big challenge for us,” Horizon head coach Omar Garcia said. “We knew it was going to be a tough test for us. They had a deep run in the playoffs last year and coach (Cummings) does a great job with that team. They reload and coming off a tough week, we knew they would be fired up and ready to play this week. We’re still learning and growing. It was a good test for us.”
West Plains quarterback Reid Macon picked apart Horizon going 18-of-27 for 292 yards with three touchdowns. Kane Tinsley-White was the go-to target catching six balls for 105 yards with a score. Slade Russell toted the ball nine times for 80 yards with a TD of his own.
The Wolves defense did their part holding the Scorpions offense to 141 total yards.