Rangers use depth to overwhelm Redsides

“As a team, we need everybody here ready to contribute on both sides of the ball in order for us to succeed,” said Bales, who scored a receiving and a rushing touchdown. “If everybody keeps putting the effort into their position and keeps working hard on every play, this will help us succeed throughout the rest of the season.”

In addition to the contributions from the young standouts, the Rangers focused on bolting out of the blocks quickly and imposing their will against an opponent.

Dufur scored three times in a span of four minutes and eight seconds, the first coming on a 40-yard punt return by Keever.

On Dufur’s next possession, Keever threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to Bales, and just 23 seconds later, Keever picked off a pass and cruised 30 yards to paydirt.

“All week, we talked about them coming out and getting after it,” said Dufur head coach Jack Henderson. “We set the tone early with our offense and defense, so that was a good thing to see from all of them.”

Cleveland and Bales later added scoring runs to end the opening quarter with the Rangers ahead by a 40-0 margin.

Over the next three quarters, Frakes had a 15-yard touchdown pass to Tabor McLaughlin, and he tacked on touchdown scampers of 35 and 25.

Sinay capped the scoring with a 15-yard run in the third quarter, and added a 25-yarder as time expired on the running clock.

Both Keever and Frakes combined for 43 yards passing and a touchdown apiece.

On the ground, Frakes and Sinay led the team with 55 yards each, Thomas tallied 29, Kortge had 16 and Red Cloud rushed two times for 15 yards for Dufur’s 262 yards from scrimmage.

“I am real pleased that we had so many different kids contribute tonight,” Henderson said. “This is the most depth that we have had in a long time. We have kids that can play multiple positions and perform right out of the gate, so that is really exciting. We are much different than where we were a year ago. We have more kids that can make plays and that is really a great thing for our staff.”

Dawson Herlocker led the Redsides with 16 yards rushing and Brandon Wraught followed up with 14, but the team wound up with -20 yards rushing for the game.

Andrew Lindley had two catches for eight yards, Ryan Hubbard had a catch for two yards and Michael Cuevas had one grab totaling 28 yards, as SWC held the ball for 37:49.

Although the Redsides (1-5 overall, 0-4 league) are dealing with several injuries, they have a favorable schedule to end the season with a game at Mitchell-Spray next Friday at 1 p.m. and then a home game on Oct. 28 against Ione.

So the goal of the coaching staff and the players is to finish as strong as possible.

“These kids have taught me that they will never give up and that they fight until the end,” said SWC assistant coach Codey Johnson. “That is one thing that you can’t teach kids. They want to win so badly and they are going to come back next week firing off the ball and they are going to fight for it. We have two winnable games coming up and they want it badly. You can’t teach heart and these kids definitely have it.”

Coming off a championship season last year, the Rangers have taken the best shots from opposing teams, so it has prepared them for the stretch run.

Ben Anderson and the rest of the seniors are using the final two regular season games and the postseason for a proper sendoff.

“We are really excited for the rest of the season because we have seven seniors here and we are all focused on going head-on hoping to get to state again,” Anderson said. “Everyone is just striving to reach that point. If we are going to do that, we just need to work as a team and in these next two games, we need to keep practicing hard and stay focused on getting better every day.”

No. 3-ranked Dufur (6-1, 3-1) hosts Ione (1-6, 1-3) at 7 p.m. next Friday for senior night.