In less than 3 and a half years, the West Plains Wolves have accomplished more than most fledgling programs can dream of, but Friday night at Happy State Bank Stadium they finally checked something off their to-do list which took four tries.
While not even close to being the biggest win in program history, they nonetheless pulled off a significant feat against Bushland. After losing each of the three previous meetings in the series, West Plains didn’t leave any doubt, crushing the Falcons 45-0 to finally claim a win over a nondistrict metro rival.
If the Wolves (4-0) hadn’t already signaled their arrival as a significant program after last season’s trip to the Class 4A Division I state semifinals, they showed they’d come full circle by beating Bushland (1-3). After all, in their first game as a varsity program, they lost to the Falcons.
“It’s a signature win because it’s versus Bushland,” said West Plains coach Adam Cummings, who has been on the sidelines for all four games against the Falcons. “It means a lot because the last 10-20 years they’re one of the best teams in the Panhandle. Our kids bought into that and just did a really good job of being consistent in their approach and executed well tonight.”
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West Plains treated Bushland the way it has every other opponent this season through one half. The Wolves dominated in every way imaginable in taking a 31-0 halftime lead which made the second half seem like a mere formality.
After Bushland got a first down (one of only four in the game) after taking the opening kickoff before punting, the Wolves made a quick offensive statement. Reid Macon hit a streaking Lawson Betancourt for a 53-yard scoring pass which gave the Wolves a 7-0 lead.
That scoring pass alone exceeded Bushland’s offensive yardage total for the first half. West Plains outgained the Falcons 303-38 in the first two quarters.
“It’s cool to see in the stands but when you’re down on the field you’ve got to give all the credit to the offensive line,” Macon said. “We’re running the ball and we’re smashing it down their throat and then we have the opportunity to throw it deep. We’ve got fast guys like Lawson and it’s special to know that’s who’s catching the ball and that’s who’s outrunning everybody.”
Macon threw five touchdown passes and it turned out Betancourt wasn’t even his favorite target. He completed 16-of-26 for 312 yards, hitting Kane White-Tinsley for three scores, including two in the second quarter.
White-Tinsley was Macon’s go-to guy when the Wolves got into the red zone, as he had a game-high six catches for 102 yards.
“We went to the game plan knowing with a man defense we were going to throw the rock around,” White-Tinsley said. “I’ve had a connection with him all week. We had great practices and the JVs had a great scout team against us so we knew we were going to have a big time game. All four receivers can go get it. (Macon) can throw it to anyone but I like when he throws it to me.”
After the first scoring pass to White-Tinsley early in the second quarter, West Plains scored defensively, as Boston Ladd intercepted Colton Strickland on the first play following the kickoff and returned it 45 yards for a score and a 21-0 lead.
That fairly sealed that it was going to West Plains’ night and not Bushland’s.
“Whenever you have an offense like ours, any chance you can get them the ball you do that,” said Ladd, who had two interceptions on the night. “It was big momentum because the offense didn’t have to do any work and we took advantage of that. It was just another game on our schedule, but obviously we had that chip on our shoulder because we hadn’t gotten them yet, but we did get them tonight.”
That was part of a particularly rough offensive stretch for the Falcons. They threw interceptions on three straight passes, with Ladd getting a second pick and White-Tinsley snagging one.
Bushland managed a paltry 86 yards of offense in four quarters. The Falcons are in the middle of a challenging portion of their schedule, as they lost close games to Canadian and Midland Christian, but West Plains presented an even rougher hurdle to leap.
“I thought our defense did about as good a job as we could do against an offense like that,” Bushland coach Josh Reynolds said. “We got some stops early and got a turnover. Defense gave us a chance to be in the game early but you can’t continually run the defense out there over and over. It seemed like they were out there forever. We couldn’t move the chains on first down on offense.”
On the last play of the half, the Wolves put the finishing touches on things on Gipson Gnagy’s 39-yard field goal.
The Falcons looked like they might be able to make things kind of interesting to start the second half, when they recovered an onside kick in West Plains territory. However, they turned the ball over on downs and didn’t threaten again after that.
All in all, it couldn’t have been a better Homecoming for West Plains, as the program keeps on building a tradition one week at a time toward something that looks like a championship season.
“That was a heck of a crowd,” Cummings said. “We talked about it all week. Our job with all the festivities going on was to put on a show on Friday night and I felt like our kids really showed up.”