Gering defeats Ogallala 26-8 in Varsity High School Football on Friday night

(Images in Media from Wix.com, Search "American Football")

By: Evan Troxel

The Gering Bulldogs defeated the Ogallala Indians 26-8 in High School varsity American Football on Friday night, September 20th, 2024!

Gering was had three wins and zero losses coming into the contest while Ogallala was 1-2 in the regular season coming into the game.

Gering scored four touchdowns while Ogallala scored just one touchdown.

Isaiah Murillo, Barron Williams, Creighton Beals and Bo Gable scored touchdowns for Gering. Kolby Nowak scored the lone touchdown for Ogallala (and caught a two-point conversion pass from Edan Cain).

Ogallala received the opening kickoff and started from their own 27.

There was no scoring in the first quarter as Ogallala was on offense for the entire first quarter except for six plays.

Ogallala got the ball to the Gering 19 on the seventh play of the opening drive of the game, and on the eighth play Ogallala had a holding call which pushed them back to the Gering 28.

Two plays later (the 10th play of the drive) on 4th down and long, Edan Cain threw an interception in the middle of the field to Isaiah Murillo probably inside the Gering 15 or 10 yard line. Murillo however fumbled the football, and Ogallala got credit for the recovery on the Gering 17.

Ogallala got the ball to the Gering 12-yard line before the 4th down play. Ogallala called timeout and then Ogallala's quarterback Edan Cain threw an incomplete pass, which resulted in a turnover on downs.

Gering got the ball at their own 12 with 3:40 left in the first quarter and on second down a running play (I guess) by Creighton Beals took the ball to the Gering 41. Rece Knight (Gering's quarterback) was sacked on the next play at the Gering 39 and then Knight throw an incompletion setting up fourth down and Gering decided to punt.

Ogallala got the ball on their own 37 yard-line with 1:05 left in the first quarter as the ball was punted out of bounds on Gering's right side (the south side).

After two plays, Ogallala had the ball on their own 42 yard line to start the second quarter.

Ogallala ran 16 plays in the first quarter while Gering only had six offensive plays.

In the second quarter, on the tenth play of the drive (and the eighth play of the quarter) Kolby Nowak had a ten-yard rushing touchdown on the left side just inside the pylon and Ogallala led 6-0. Nowak then caught a pass from Cain on the two-point conversion a few yards away from the goal line on the left side (in the middle of the field) on a play I believe in which Nowak acted like he was going to block and then he went out for a pass.

So Ogallala led 8-0 with 7:42 left in the second quarter.

Gering then got the ball on their own 39 with 7:41 left in the second quarter and Isaiah Murillo caught a 50-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Rece Knight. Murillo caught the ball along the sideline probably around the Ogallala 15 or 20 yard-line and then ran straight to the end zone on the right side (the west end zone).

The touchdown occurred on just the fourth play of the drive with 5:41 left in the second quarter.

Gering went for the two-point conversion and failed on a rushing attempt to the left side that got stopped just before the goal line, but a facemask called at the end of the play by Ogallala gave Gering another opportunity.

Ogallala called timeout right before Gering looked like they were going to do a quarterback sneak. Then, Gering did a pass play to the right to Barron Williams and Knight threw it so fast a few yards into the end zone that Williams and Knight weren't on the same page and the ball fell incomplete closer to the Ogallala defensive back.

So Gering trailed Ogallala by two, 8-6.

Ogallala had the football at their own 23 with 5:35 left in the second quarter.

Ogallala ran two plays from scrimmage and Ogallala fumbled on the second play and Gering recovered the fumble at the Ogallala 25 yard-line.

This was probably the most consequential play of the entire game.

There was 4:45 left in the second quarter when Gering took possession of the football.

Gering again scored quickly on just the third play of the drive.

Barron Williams then caught a 20 yard touchdown pass on the right side and ran right by the Ogallala defender Sawyer Smith after he caught the ball somewhere between the five and probably the 15-yard line on his way to the end zone. Gering then threw a pass to the right on the two-point conversion into the end zone at a diagonal angle and it went off the fingertips of the Gering receiver's hands and it fell incomplete behind him in the end zone.

Gering 12, Ogallala 8.

Ogallala then started the drive at their own 21 with 3:17 left until halftime. On the fourth play of the drive Kolby Nowak ran from the Ogallala 32 to the Ogallala 45.

Ogallala then I guess got a little greedy on first down and threw an interception to Gering's Tyler Cape. He picked it off at the Gering 44 and returned it to what appeared to be the Ogallala 45.

Gering had it with 1:48 left in the quarter.

Gering started at the Ogallala 47 in which Knight ran (I guess) for no gain and then threw an incompletion before a timeout with 59.8 seconds left until halftime.

Gering then had a completion to the Ogallala 46 (or 44) for one yard on third down. There was a penalty on Gering and Ogallala decided to decline it bringing up fourth down and long (about seven I think).

Gering then threw an incompletion in the middle of the field to the right to I believe Bo Gable in which the ball was thrown just a few inches too far away from Gable to Gable's left to actually make a serious attempt to catch the football.

So Ogallala took over with 28.1 seconds left in the quarter at their own 44.

Sawyer Smith then had a ten-yard run from the Ogallala 47 to the Gering 43. Ogallala called timeout again with 12.1 seconds left and after that had time for an incompletion, a short run by Nowak I believe out of bounds to the Gering 40 and then another run by Nowak to the Gering 27.

Gering led Ogallala 12-8 at halftime.

Rece Knight was 6 of 11 throwing the football for 84 yards in the first half for Gering.

In the third quarter, there was no scoring and Ogallala had the football on offense from the 6:51 mark until about the middle part of the 4th quarter with 7:12 left in the game.

Ogallala kicked off to start the second half and immediately went offside on the first kickoff attempt.

Ogallala kicked it in onside fashion again and Gering recovered at their own 45.

Creighton Beals ran to the Ogallala 41 from the Ogallala 48 for Gering for a first down.

Gering lost yards to the Ogallala 45 on the next play and then Rece Knight threw a completion for 0 yards bringing up third down and long.

Beals then ran to the Ogallala 29 for another first down.

Gering then had a chop block penalty which pushed them back to the Ogallala 44.

Beals then got to the Ogallala 36, an incompletion on the next play and then Bo Gable lost five yards to the Ogallala 41 and Gering was forced to punt to the Ogallala 5.

Ogallala had the ball with 6:51 left in the third quarter.

Ogallala got a first down on third down to the Ogallala 15, then Cain threw an incompletion again on third down and Ogallala was forced to punt.

Ogallala punted to the Gering 42, Barron Williams went up the middle and eventually broke it out to the outside and returned it on the left side (north side) to the Ogallala 30 and he fumbled the football and Ogallala recovered.

So Ogallala ran five rushing plays to end the third quarter and had the ball on the Gering 44 to start the fourth quarter.

Ogallala did six more rushing plays and got down to the Gering 15. Gering then called timeout with 8:24 left in the game.

Ogallala's Kolby Nowak ran to the Gering two yard line, but a holding penalty pushed the football back to the Gering 27. This was probably one of the two most consequential plays of the entire game!

Cain got sacked to the Gering 28 on third down and then Nowak ran to the Gering 16 on fourth down and it was a turnover on downs.

Gering got the football back with 7:12 in the fourth quarter.

Creighton Beals for Gering ran free on the 4th play of the drive and scored a 72 yard run by running up the middle and then eventually breaking it outside to the right probably around the 50 yard line or the Ogallala 40 and scoring in the west end zone.

Gering kicked and made the extra point and they led 19-8 with 5:04 left to go in the 4th quarter.

Ogallala got the ball on their own 27-yard line with 4:59 left.

Ogallala then went backwards and had a three-and-out and had no choice but to punt.

Ogallala had an incomplete pass, and two runs that lost yardage to the Ogallala 25 and the Ogallala 21 respectively.

Gering's Barron Williams then caught the ball on the Ogallala punt probably at about the 40 or 42 yard-line of Gering and ran to the Gering 48 and kneeled down to the ground, ending the play, knowing that the game was basically over at that point.

Gering had the ball with 3:17 left.

Gering's Bo Gable then ran to the Ogallala 47 on the first play of the drive. Then on the second play of the drive Gable ran up the middle and got free and scored a 47-yard touchdown to ice the game away.

Gering's #21 made the extra point inside the left upright (according to the referees) and Gering led 26 to 8 with 2:26 left in the fourth quarter. (I thought the kicker missed the extra point from what I could tell).

Ogallala then started from their own 19 with 2:05 left and did five plays and that was the end of the game.

FINAL SCORE: Gering 26, Ogallala 8.

So Gering is now 4-0 on the season while Ogallala is 1-3.

Ogallala has lost their last two games and Ogallala is 0-2 at home so far this season.

Ogallala won against Gering in the previous two games over the previous two seasons.

Ogallala won at home against Gering last year 38-28 and they won at Gering 37-23 two years ago.

According to maxpreps.com, Gering's last win against Ogallala was in Ogallala on September 4th, 2009, and Gering won that game 16-13.

Gering hosts the McCook Bison next Friday night while Ogallala hosts the Chadron Cardinals next Friday night.

Gering's fans were very frustrated in the first quarter and in the early stages of the second quarter. Ogallala definitely had Gering defeated in the early stages of Friday night's contest.

Ogallala played extremely well on Friday night considering they lost at Cozad 47-6 last Friday night on September 13th.

Ogallala really didn't play that bad at all for most of the game until they obviously got tired near the end of the game.

If a few things had gone Ogallala's way on Friday night, they probably would have defeated Gering again last night and perhaps would have led for most of the game, if you eliminate a few mistakes!

Only one turnover (the fumble in the first half) actually hurt Ogallala immediately and right away on Gering's next offensive possession. The rest of Ogallala's turnovers didn't hurt them right away.

The other things that hurt Ogallala were untimely holding penalties and perhaps greedy play calls on first down (or early downs) and generally speaking, just bad play calling on plays that you need to get more yardage.