Bushland jumped out to a very fast start and never looked back soaring past Borger for a 55-0 blanking in the 2025 season on Friday night at Falcons Stadium.
A new-look Bushland team took advantage of early opportunities from a Bulldog squad that struggled to find their footing in the early going. On the opening play of the game and the ball deep in their own territory, a snap went over quarterback Hunter Randles head, allowing Bushland to recover the ball inside the Borger 10-yard line.
Two plays later, Bushland capitalized off the miscue when quarterback Colton Strickland hit a quick screen to Jenner King for a seven-yard score giving the Falcons a 7-0 lead not a minute into the contest.
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From that point forward, Bushland started to pour it on. On the following possession, Borger had another snap issue at midfield allowing Bushland defensive lineman Jaxon Lawler to fall on a fumble giving the Falcons the ball back inside the Bulldog 40-yard line. Moments later, It was running back Colton Foote taking a handoff and going untouched from 10-yards for a touchdown and it was quickly 14-0 inside of two minutes from the opening kickoff.
“We had an excellent start to the game,” Bushland head coach Josh Reynolds said. “We did get a couple of gifts from Borger mistakes and that won’t always happen, but we’ll take it. That helped set the tone for the start of the game and we executed off those mistakes. That’s big for a young team like us.”
Bushland broke the game open from that point forward going up 28-0 by the end of the first and taking a commanding 48-0 advantage by halftime.
With last year’s quarterback Quaid Ferris transferring to Frenship, coach Reynolds started Strickland, a senior, at quarterback, but played junior Kannon Avan as well. Strickland was going 5-of-6 for 31 yards in limited action and ran for 19 yards. Aven was superb in his debut going 2-of-4 including a 35-yard TD strike to King and he also tacked on 101 yards rushing with a score. King ended his night with two touchdowns on 43 yards receiving.
Foote put his stamp on a big night showing his power rushing the ball 12 times for 79 yards including his 10-yard touchdown.
On the defensive side, Bushland limited Borger to under 100 total yards and forced three turnovers. Strickland had five tackles from his linebacker position. Lawler added four tackles with two fumble recoveries and Bryson Jiminez had seven tackles, two of those for a loss.
“We played extremely fast,” Reynolds said. “I liked what I saw from the two quarterbacks. Those are two guys that have worked hard in fall camp and were thrusted into this role. I like the pace of the offense compared to the scrimmages we had. We had positive yards, and we dominated both lines.”
The Falcons will now get set for a Week 2 matchup at Canadian on Friday.