Bombers use bombs to top Comanche

By Todd Brooks

The Comanche Indians managed to stay close to unbeaten Frederick in the early-going of their Class District 2A-4. In fact, the visitors to Frederick had a 6-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
On the strength of two long touchdown bombs, the Bombers scored 26 straight points in the second quarter and the Indians were never able to recover, losing the game, 40-14.

“(We had) those two big coverage letdowns,” said Casy Rowell, Comanche coach. “We had practiced that during the week, but we didn’t make those adjustments in the game and it cost us in the secondary. If you make a mistake like that in the secondary, that’s what is going to happen. You leave a guy wide open, they’re going to score. That was disappointing. I always feel like we should have those things covered. If we do, then it becomes a jump ball and if you miss that, that is a little bit different than nobody being there.”

Those two scores came on back-to-back drives where Frederick quarterback Adrian Gaytan threw two long touchdown passes - all in the air to the endzone - of 53 and 40 yards to his receivers.

“That plus special teams hurt us,” Rowell said. “There was that one kickoff after we scored where they had a big return and got the momentum back on their side. You could almost feel the shift.”

Comanche scored first on a 33-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Kooper Doucet to receiver Mason Kulbeth to give the Indians a 6-0 lead.

Frederick quickly answered back early in the second quarter to take a 7-6 lead. The Bombers would never trail again. That was followed up by the Bombers’ big pass plays that pushed the lead to 19-6.

The Bombers were up 26-6 before the Indians made it back on the scoreboard. This time it was an 82-yard catch-and-run by Kulbeth, who hauled the ball in from his outstretched arms and outran the Bomber secondary for the score to cut the lead to 26-14 at the half.

“At the half, we still were hopeful,” Rowell said. “We had the ball and we were driving, things were looking good and then we stalled. It killed our momentum again. No one scored in the third and once they got a score in the fourth, it all just kind of fell apart and the game started to get out of reach.”

Despite the loss, the coach still saw some things to be positive about.

“We played some of our best football we have all year, but we just need to put it together for four quarters in order to beat some of the best teams. We want to beat those teams, though. We don’t just want to play them close or have moral victories. We want real victories.”

Kulbeth had one of his best games receiving, catching seven passes for 147 yards and two touchdowns.

Doucet was 8-of-20 for 162 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

Lake Epperson was the leading rusher with 45 yards on 13 carries.

Defensively, the Indians were led by Colton Newton with five tackles. Epperson had 4.5 tackles and Owen Bigford, Sam Siebert and Devon McCarty had four each to round out the top five.

Playoff bound

Regardless of what happens from here on out, the Indians will be making the postseason thanks to an OSSAA measure announced Monday. The ruling says because of all the cancellations of games across the state over the season, any team that wants to be included in the playoffs can participate.

Rowell said his team will definitely be participating in the postseason.

Up until that ruling, the Indians would have had to win their three remaining games to just have a shot at making the playoffs, probably as a No. 4 seed. That would more than likely mean a trip to Washington for the second straight year in the playoffs.

Now, though, Rowell said anything is possible for that first-round matchup.

He does know that his team has had a tough five-game stretch against some quality opponents.

“We are definitely battled-tested,” Rowell said.

The Indians lost all five of those games to drop to 2-5 on the season with winless Tishomingo (0-5) coming to town for Senior Night this Friday. It will be the last regular-season home game for Comanche, which will finish the final two regular-season games on the road.