The final Friday night of football for the Morrison Fresh-Soph team in 2015 was played under a constant mist, on Friday, October 23, 2015. They went against a Bureau Valley Storm team that wasn’t able to offer much competition for the once-beaten Morrison Ponies.
After receiving the opening kickoff, the Ponies marched easily down the field. Nathan Bush bullied for 18 yards, Zach Cartwright collected 14, and Reilly Dolan scrambled for 15, before Trestin DeMay finished the drive with an 11-yard scoring run. The score moved to 8-0 when Dolan found Britt Ottens for the two-point conversion. The young Storm only had one first quarter possession and could only generate six yards of offense, before punting back to the Ponies. Bush continued to punish the Storm defense with runs of 19 and 17 yards. The Ponies ended the quarter on the Bureau Valley 34-yard line, leading 8-0.
The second quarter opened with a Dolan-to-Cartwright 14-yard pass completion and a 19-yard touchdown rumble by Bush. Jacob Schlegel scored the two-point conversion; with only 34 seconds gone in the second quarter, the Ponies led 16-0. A short Morrison kick gave the Storm possession on the 40-yard line. Bush threw quarterback Payton Moore for a 5-yard loss on the first snap. Grant Abell followed with tackles of Moore for losses of nine and four yards. A poor BV punt, that Morrison downed on the Storm 17-yard line, started the next Morrison drive. Bush scored point number 22, four downs later, as the carried the ball in from the 11-yard line with 5:13 left in the half. The Storm offense couldn’t penetrate the Morrison defense and returned the ball four downs later, after failing to gain a first down. Immediately Dolan completed a 15-yard pass to Grant Slater and a 38 yarder to Schlegel for a touchdown, with 1:15 remaining in the half. Dolan carried for the two-point conversion, and the Ponies closed the first half ahead 30-0. The first half statistics showed the Ponies with a ground game totaling 175 yards to the Storm’s 0. Dolan was two-for-four pass attempts for 68 yards, compared to the Storm’s two-for-three attempts for 21 yards.
The Morrison defense continued to own the Bureau Valley offense. The Ponies only allowed 13 third quarter yards while accumulating 67. They ran the score to 38-0 on a 31-yard scoring run by Schlegel at the 4:00 mark. Bureau Valley was able to get on the scoreboard on their first and only possession of the final quarter. The scoring drive was keyed by a 29-yard run by Andrew Hockings and a two-point conversion by quarterback Tyler Gustafson.
The final stats were as one-sided as the score. The Ponies generated 290 yards on the ground, with Nathan Bush gaining 144. Reilly Dolan‘s 68 passing yards brought the Morrison total yardage to 358, compared to the Bureau Valley total of 85.
Final score was Morrison 38, Bureau Valley 8.