BY VICTOR TUN

The top-10 ranked Kell Longhorns dominated from start to finish and cruised to a 51-7 victory against the Woodland Wildcats Friday night.The lone touchdown for the Wildcats (1-9, 0-8) came via a 1-yard run by Demarcus Williams towards the end of the fourth quarter. On the scoring drive, Woodland executed 13 plays, with Williams having 12 carries for 72 yards. The rest of the yards gained came from a 2-yard run by Noah Tidwell and a 5-yard penalty against Kell.During his last game wearing a Wildcat uniform, Williams rushed the ball 34 times for about 150 yards. Tidwell had 20 yards on seven carries, Jonathan Thomas had 2 yards on three rushing attempts and Brandon Montes rushed for 7 yards on three carries.

“I love them. I have four kids of my own and I love these kids as if they were my own. When you spend this much time with people, you learn to love them and just like any family, we have our differences, but at the end of the day, we’re family,” Woodland head football coach Tony Plott said regarding the seniors who played one last time for the Wildcats. “I will always be here for them, and I hope that they know that, and if there’s ever anything I can do for them, or any of these coaches can do for them, we’re here for them and always will be.”At the beginning of the game, Kell (8-2, 6-2) took an early lead when David Mbadinga scored after 1-yard run.

Mbadinga had rushed for 44 yards two plays earlier when he was stopped at the 1-yard line.After Longhorns’ Nate Woghiren recovered a fumble by Woodland’s quarterback Jonathan Thomas, Kell drove down the field for their second score of the night. This time, it was a 21-yard pass by Corbin LaFrance to Jaylon Brown. On the Wildcats next possession, the team drove 46 yards down the field until they fell short to gain a new set of downs when the team came up short on a fourth down. With Kell’s offense back on the field, Tyler Barrett rushed for his first touchdown of the night, a 5-yard run which gave the Longhorns a 21-0 lead at the time.Barrett’s touchdown capped off a six-play, 64 yard drive for the Longhorns.After holding the Wildcats’ offense to a punt, Barrett rushed for his second score of the night, making it a 27-point game after the Longhorns’ extra point was blocked.

Just before the end of the half, Colby Kerns added three points to the scoreboard for Kell when he kicked a 44-yard field goal through the uprights, thus giving the team a 30-0 lead.In the third quarter, Kell’s offense would reach the end zone two more times when LaFrance rushed for a 7-yard touchdown and then Barrett scored from a 4-yard run, his third of the night.After Williams scored for Woodland, the Kell offense stepped on to the field one last time and Barrett scored his fourth touchdown of the night, a 65-yard run.“I think it was a season that was a little disappointing to us. I think our expectations were higher at the beginning of the year, but unfortunately we had a couple of games that we could have won but we didn’t finish them,” Plott said. “As I mentioned before, we hurt for our players, especially for the seniors who put in work, or like they say, ‘grinding,’ every day for four years. And you feel bad and hurt for them because, when you love them like they’re your own kids, you want only the best for them, and we were unable to give it to them this year.”