For the week of  October 3 - 9, 2001

Declo runs at will, socks Wolverines 41-30

Hailey rally falls short, Buhl next

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To stop one of their Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference football opponents this fall, Wood River High School defensive players will have to tackle much better.

Certainly better than they did Friday, when the Declo Hornets ran through the Hailey defense at will and posted a 41-30 SCIC victory on the final night at Phil Homer Field.

"There just wasn’t a lot of good tackling going on," said Wood River coach John Blackman, whose team trailed by as much as 41-14 with 20 minutes left in the home game.

"But Declo is ranked #1 in the league for a reason. We just couldn’t stop them," he added.

Declo’s junior quarterback Jordon Bagwell, perhaps the best football player in the SCIC, set the tone of the game on the first Hornet possession. Pinned behind the scrimmage line, he shrugged off a Wolverine shoulder tackle and rambled 57 yards for the first touchdown.

Bagwell (12 rushes for 96 yards plus 4-for-9 for 71 yards passing) spearheaded a Declo rushing offense that piled up 350 yards on 52 carries. An all-around player, he also led the Hornet defense with 9 tackles.

Coach Blackman said, "Bagwell is a heckuva athlete."

Led by senior quarterback Joe Molyneux, Wood River (2-3 overall, 0-2 league) appeared ready and willing to give the Hornets (4-1, 2-0) a stiff challenge early in the game.

After Bagwell’s first of three touchdowns, Wood River’s Nic Nottingham raced 53 yards on a slotback run and Molyneux ignored a fierce Hornet pass rush to complete a 12-yard TD toss to tight end Ryne Reynoso.

"Joe pulled off a couple of clutch throws," said Blackman. "We’re still not coming up with the high-percentage catches, but our passing game is coming along a little bit."

Trailing 21-8 after Declo capitalized on a botched punt snap to score an easy TD, Wood River assembled a six-minute, 14-play, 51-yard scoring drive ignited by a 31-yard kickoff return by Matt Conover.

Big plays included a 14-yard Kellen Chatterton dive, a seven-yard Molyneux scramble on third-and-six, and a nine-yard Molyneux-to-Reynoso connection after a high snap into the shotgun formation.

That cut Declo’s lead to 21-14. But the Hornets chewed up huge hunks of running yardage in reeling off 20 unanswered points to build a 41-14 cushion.

Fortunately for the sizable home crowd, Wood River scored the final two TDs to make the score respectable. "We didn’t quit. The kids hung in there and took it all the way to the end," Blackman said.

Reynoso’s 42-yard TD romp on a QB draw and his own conversion run made it 41-22 with 7:47 left. After a Tyler Klune interception, Dylan Welcome threaded his way through the scrimmage line and busted free for a 73-yard TD scamper up the middle.

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WOLVERINE NOTES—Declo scored on its first six possessions…Wood River (10-for-16 season) made three of four conversions…Two questionable calls riled Blackman—the first a clipping call against Wood River on a Declo punt that enabled the Hornets to retain possession and led to their third TD, the second on the final onsides kick that appeared to go Wood River’s way…The final Wolverine home game is tentatively scheduled for Friday, Oct. 12 at 4:30 p.m. at Chuck Turner Field (Wood River Middle School field).

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