WIRE TO WIRE
Taylor 21, Lampasas 16
Ducks' running game, onside kick recovery dooms LHS
By JEREMY HEATH Staff Writer

Above: Lampasas safety Josiah Owens brings down Taylor return man Mark Jackson in the Badgers' 21-16 loss. Top right: LHS receiver Jarrod Bowen lined up as quarterback on a handful of plays, carrying three times for six yards. Right: Savannah Burks was crowned LHS Sweetheart before the game. Bottom left: LHS receiver Cole Ball caught one pass for 22 yards.

Taylor's Tristan Meyer might have carried the ball 37 times for 256 yards and three touchdowns, but teammate Cory Kruse made the play of the game in the Ducks' 21- 16 win Friday at Badger Field.

With 1:13 left in the game and Lampasas coming off a four-play, 65-yard scoring drive, Kruse gambled by diving at Sam Barbero's onside kick attempt before it traveled 10 yards. Kruse made a clean scoop. Rally thwarted. Game over.

The Ducks appeared to ice the game when they took a 21-10 lead on Meyer's third scoring jaunt of the game, a 57-yarder with 2:01 remaining. But LHS sophomore quarterback Vann Millican kept his team in the contest by completing 4-of-4 passes for 65 yards on the ensuing drive, capping it with an 8- yard touchdown to Seth Fry in the corner of the end zone.

PHOTOS BY GABE WOLF

Millican, who completed just seven passes for 87 yards and three interceptions in a Week 1 loss at Waco University, completed 17 of 38 for 190 yards and two touchdowns on Friday. He also connected with Fry on a 61-yard score, but it was turned into a 19-yard gain by an illegal block.

"Vann's been throwing the ball better, and he's gaining confidence day by day," LHS head coach Ryan Bailey said. "And that (confidence) is what it is (that led to an improved performance). I mean it's his second game in high school ever. He made a few bad reads along the way, but he's getting there."

The LHS defense held Meyer -- a 6'1", 190-pounder with 4.4 speed -- to 78 yards on 19 carries in the first half, and the Badgers led 10-6 at the intermission. But Ducks coach Rick Cobia kept feeding Meyer the ball and wearing down the Badger defense. With six minutes left in the third quarter, Meyer's longest run to that point had been a 16-yard score in the second quarter. With 5:42 remaining in the frame, Meyer broke loose on a 42-yard, up-the-gut touchdown to give Taylor its first lead of the game at 14-10.

On the Ducks' next drive, they gobbled up eight minutes on the clock and used 15 plays to move the ball from their own 20 to the LHS 39 before punting. But the toll the drive took on the Badger defense was evident.

The Badgers opened the scoring when Jarrod Bowen capped a threeplay, 17-yard drive by hauling in a Millican pass with an acrobatic catch in the back of the end zone with 4:16 left in the first quarter. The drive was set up by Reese Vann, who trapped Meyer for a 15-yard loss after a bad snap on a punt attempt. Vann would later recover a Meyer fumble, one of three turnovers forced by LHS.

The Ducks cashed in on the only Badger turnover, going 27 yards on five plays after Bowen muffed a punt at his own 27. Meyer's 16- yard run with 11:53 left in the half capped the drive.

The Badgers took a 10-6 lead on Barbero's 27-yard field goal with 7:21 remaining in the first half.

"There was a lot of good," Bailey said after the contest. "We made a few mistakes that cost us. We made two penalties (the illegal block and a motion penalty that pushed the Badgers out of Barbero's range at the end of the half) that cost us 10 points, and that's hard to swallow when you lose by five.

"Our kids played hard and deserved to win tonight, except for a couple of dumb mistakes on our part."

The Badger defense allowed just 294 total yards, but 277 of that came on the ground. The Ducks handed the ball off on 52 of 58 plays from scrimmage. Vann and Coleton Lucas recovered fumbles, and Jonathan Vanliew intercepted a pass. The LHS defense has forced nine turnovers in two games.

The Badger offense, which gained 116 yards in the opener, gained 213 on Friday after the 42 yards were subtracted from Fry's called-back touchdown.

Lampasas (0-2) will play host to Gatesville (0-3) Friday night in a Homecoming affair at Badger Field. Gatesville is coming off a 70-7 loss to Liberty Hill.