LRS football drops to 0-3 in league, prepare for Homecoming matchup

A frustrating season continued last Friday for the Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos football team, as the team fell 21-0 to the Liberty Lancers on Oct. 18 in a league road game.

The loss drops the team’s league record to 0-3 (1-6 overall), and is the first time that the Broncos have been shutout since a 21-0 loss to Davenport on Oct. 6, 2017.

Offensively, LRS finished with just 69 yards of total offense, which included an abysmal -6 rushing yards on 24 rushing attempts. Senior running back Austin Thompson led the team with 17 yards on 11 carries, while all other LRS rushers ran for -23 yards on 13 carries. Junior quarterback Drew Kelly finished the game going 9-16 passing for 75 yards.

The Broncos offense managed just three first downs in the game, two of which came via passes and one that came via a penalty on Liberty. LRS was just 1-12 (8.3%) on third down conversions and 0-2 on fourth down conversions, while the Lancers offense was 6-13 (46.2%) on third down conversions. Liberty also dominated the time of possession, holding the ball for 29:12 and running 54 plays while LRS held the ball for 18:48 and ran 43 plays.

“We just couldn’t get anything going offensively,” said LRS head coach Greg Whitmore. “Across the front they were better and stronger at every position. We couldn’t move them.”

Defensively, the Broncos gave up just 199 yards of total offense to the Lancers, who scored a touchdown in each of the first, second and third quarters. The 19 points given up by the LRS defense are the fewest it’s given up this season since the team’s 36-6 win against the Northwest Christian Crusaders on Sept. 13. Both of the team’s defenses also forced one turnover in the game. The Broncos’ Hayden Melcher intercepted Lancers quarterback Jake Carr, while Liberty recovered an LRS fumble.

“It was one of our better defensive games, we were more physical,” said Whitmore. “We gave up a couple big plays, but other than that we made them punt the ball and got the ball back several times.”

Homecoming Week has taken over Lind-Ritzville High School, and is highlighted by Friday’s Homecoming game between the Broncos and the Manson Trojans, a non-league matchup. Manson is 4-3 on the season, and has one common opponent with LRS: Lake Roosevelt, with the Broncos losing to Lake Roosevelt 25-7 and the Trojans losing to Lake Roosevelt 28-0.

Whitmore hopes that Homecoming Week will inspire his team, and that they can drown out the distractions.

“We’ve had it both ways,” said Whitmore. “Sometimes we play terrible, sometimes we play really well, sometimes it doesn’t even have an effect. You always want kids to have fun, this is part of the high school experience. It only comes four times in their lives, so you want to have it be fun for them.”