CHEYENNE – Cheyenne East didn’t hesitate to capitalize on Cheyenne Central’s mistakes Friday night.
The No. 3-ranked Thunderbirds scored 28 points off five turnovers en route to a 41-18 win over the No. 1-ranked Indians in the 71st “Capital Bowl” matchup.
“Our defense did a great job of putting our offense back on the field,” East coach Chad Goff said. “And our offense did a great job of converting on those turnovers and making people pay for their mistakes.”
Central’s offense looked like it has for much of the season and moved the ball well on its first possession of the game, which led to a 25-yard Teagan Tippets field goal and a 3-0 lead. However, that was the most offensive momentum the Indians had throughout the first half.
Jackson Hesford intercepted an Andrew Cummins pass for East’s first turnover of the game with a little over four minutes to play in the first quarter. Just under two minutes later, Graedyn Buell scored his first of five touchdowns on the day when he ran it in from two yards out.
The turnovers continued to be a thorn in the side for Central.
Keagan Bartlett recovered a Central turnover on the Indians’ ensuing possession and Buell connected with Jake Rayl on a 14-yard touchdown pass on the very next play.
“You can’t give a good team extra possessions,” Central coach Mike Apodaca said. “The turnovers early on just put us behind and so we pressed and that never works … it didn’t quite go our way early, we kind of broke down and just like a water fall, it kept coming and we couldn’t shut it off.”
East (6-1) took complete control of the game midway through the second quarter.
Buell found Rayl on a fly for a 64-yard touchdown and their third touchdown connection of the contest, and on the Indians’ next possession, Julian Vigil grabbed an interception at the line of scrimmage and took it 50 yards the other way for the score and a 34-3 lead his squad carried into the break.
“(That pick-six) was amazing,” Vigil said. “I was just in the right spot, I heard it hit my chest and I didn’t even think, I just grabbed it and I ran.”
Central (6-1) managed to find the endzone as the third quarter neared its end after Nathanial Talich intercepted a Buell pass, which set up a 6-yard touchdown pass from Cummins to Brock Storebo. Cummins found the endzone with an 8-yard touchdown rush for the lone score of the fourth quarter and final score of the game.
“We felt a whole sense of change at the beginning of the game,” Talich said. “And we just couldn’t recover from it.”
East finished with 423 total yards and Central had 325.
After losing its first game of the season, East is on a six-game winning streak as the end of the regular season approaches. The T-Birds will look to continue to carry their momentum into the final stretch of the season.
“We just need to keep doing what we’re doing,” Vigil said. “That’s all I can say about that.”
EAST 41, CENTRAL 18
Cheyenne East...... 13 21 20 0 – 41
Cheyenne Central...... 3 0 7 8 – 18
SCORING SUMMARY
First Quarter
CC: Tippets 25 field goal, 7:27
CE: Buell 2 run (LaRue kick), 2:14
CE: Rayl 14 pass from Buell (PAT no good), 0:15
Second Quarter
CE: Rayl 11 pass from Buell (PAT no good), 7:07
CE: Rayl 64 pass from Buell (2-pt good), 4:29
CE: Vigil 50 interception return (LaRue kick), 2:17
Third Quarter
CE: Pugh 23 pass from Buell (LaRue kick), 7:22
CC: Bro. Storebo 6 pass from Cummins (Tippets kick), 4:52
Fourth Quarter
CC: Cummins 8 run (2-pt good), 4:40
Individual statistics
Rushing
Cheyenne East: Pugh 14-71, Buell 10-56, Hesford 2-3, Lopez 6-12, Bartlett 2-17. Cheyenne Central:Lobatos 10-50, Cummings 8-19, Cummins 5-(minus-3), Davis 4-13.
Passing
Cheyenne East: Buell 15-24-1, 290. Cheyenne Central: Cummins 21-34-3, 255, Feezer 0-1-1, 0.
Receiving
Cheyenne East: Hesford 1-2, Rayl 6-160, Goff 1-42, Schlabs 4-29, Pugh 2-25, Bartlett 1-6. Cheyenne Central: Lobatos 1-22, Johnson 11-147, Talich 2-13, Bro. Storebo 4-57, Cummings 1-16.
