Breckenridge Texan

Buckaroos start football season with win over Jacksboro

Buckaroos start football season with win over Jacksboro
September 02
14:35 2018

Breckenridge High School started the 2018 football season off on a high note with a victory over Jacksboro on Friday night in Tiger Stadium. The final score of the season opener was 43 to 36 in favor of the Buckaroos.

The two teams traded scores back and forth all night, with the fourth quarter seeing a total of 34 points combined. At two different times in the fourth quarter, the Buckaroos were ahead by 20 points, but by the end, the Jacksboro High School Tigers had narrowed that lead to only 7 points.

The starting quarterback for the Buckaroos was BHS senior Kevin Franco. Junior Owen Woodward, who started as quarterback last year, has an injured elbow, explained Lance Kitchens and Charlie Parker in the live broadcast of the game on KLXK 93.5-FM radio station. Woodward played as a receiver in Friday night’s game.

“Proud of our guys,” Breckenridge Head Coach Casey Hubble said, acknowledging that some mistakes were made in the game. “It’s our job as coaches to teach them how to play and put people away and be more disciplined. So, if there’s undisciplined things happening, it’s on me, it’s on our coaching staff; and we’re going to get it fixed because our kids want to win. And, I’m really proud of them.”

Last year

The 2017 Buckaroos were the District 4-3A, Division I, Region 1 champions. They were unbeaten in district play. Breckenridge lost to the Merkel Badgers in the Bi-district Championship Playoff.

Jacksboro is a 3A-Division 2 school. Last year, they advanced to the Regional Championship Playoffs, losing to New Diana by 1 point. Their 2017 overall record was 12-2, and their district record was 4-1. The 3A classification is divided into two divisions with Division 1 including schools with enrollments of 335 to 504 students, and Division 2 including schools with 225-334 students.

Friday night’s game

The Breckenridge Buckaroos take down a Jacksboro player Friday night in Tiger Stadium. For more photos from the game, click here to see the Breckenridge Texan photo gallery. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Although the Jacksboro Tigers ultimately began the 2018 season with a loss, they made the first score of the night this past Friday with a field goal at 6:25 on the clock in the first quarter. The Buckaroos answered that almost three minutes later with a touchdown by Jonas Arellano and an extra point kick by Justin Bell. With 3:41 on the clock in the first quarter, the score was Buckaroos 7, Tigers 3.

A minute and a half into the second quarter, the Tigers scored a touchdown. When the extra point kick bounced off of the goal post, the score was Tigers 9, Buckaroos 7. That was the last time the Tigers would be ahead of the Buckaroos in the game.

Breckenridge would score two more times in the first half – about halfway through the second quarter with a run from quarterback Kevin Franco (extra point no good) and again with 3:32 left in the half with a touchdown run by Franco and a good extra point kick by Bell. That took the score to 20-9 in favor of the Buckaroos at halftime.

The Buckaroos came back from halftime and scored just 50 seconds into the third quarter with a Franco pass to Owen Woodward. The extra point was not good, and the score was Breckenridge 26, Jacksboro 9.

With 3:09 left in the third quarter, Jacksboro scored a touchdown with a good point-after kick, taking the score to 26 to 16 in favor of Breckenridge.

Shortly before the end of the third quarter, the Buckaroos’ Bell kicked a 24-yard field goal to give Breckenridge 29 points to Jacksboro’s 16.

Once again, the Buckaroos got a fast start to the quarter, scoring a touchdown with a 32-yard Franco pass to Woodward and a good extra point by Bell, less than two minutes into the fourth quarter. Score: Breckenridge 36 – Jacksboro 16.

But, the Tigers answered that score with a touchdown and extra point of their own at 6:08 on the clock, making the score 36-23 in favor of the Buckaroos.

The game remained scoreless for the next four minutes. Then, with about two and a half minutes left in the game, the two teams scored three more times. At 2:31 on the clock, Franco handed the ball off to Diego Arellano for an 11-yard run. The extra point was good, and the score was 43 to 23.

Nineteen seconds later, the Jacksboro Tigers made a touchdown and extra point. Score: Breckenridge 43, Jacksboro 30.

But, Jacksboro wasn’t finished. With 1:20 left in the game, the Tigers recovered a Buckaroo fumble and got the ball on the Buckaroos’ 44-yard-line. They took the score to within one touchdown when they made a touchdown with 28 seconds left in the game. The point-after failed, and the final score was Breckenridge 43, Jacksboro 36.

Coach’s comments

Head football coach Casey Hubble talks to the Buckaroo players during the game Friday night. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/ Breckenridge Texan)

“We were able to complete the ball down the field, caught some big passes,” Hubble said to reporters immediately following the game. “Defensively we played really physically at the line of scrimmage which is good, and pretty disciplined for the most part till late in the game, you know, gave ’em some cheap ones and (Jacksboro player) No. 5 made a great catch over there.”

The coach said the Buckaroos played a strong game in the first half. “And as we continued on, I guess we just kinda got tired of the process it takes to play good,” he said. “You just gotta be more disciplined. You can’t cheat the system; you can’t look in the backfield if you’re supposed to key a tight end or a wing. Teams like that will make you pay for it.

“Later on I didn’t see it, but early on, absolutely, you saw the capabilities of what this team could do,” Hubble continued, speaking on the field after the game.

He said in Friday night’s game he saw some really good defense, as well as some things that are uncharacteristic of a team that’s going to win. “It’s like I told them, it doesn’t have to be that hard,” Hubble said. “Football’s just like life – when you do undisciplined things or ignorant things, life doesn’t reward you. And the game of football will not either.”

Looking forward

Next Friday, Sept. 7, Breckenridge will take on the Comanche High School Indians in Buckaroo Stadium. Last year, Comanche played in 3A-Division 1, the same classification as Breckenridge was last year and continues to be this year. They had an overall record of 12-2 and a district record of 5-0. They lost to Brock High School in the Quarterfinals of the Championship Playoffs.

This year, however, the UIL realignment has dropped Comanche down to 3A-Division 2 into a new football district that also includes Jacksboro, Dublin, Millsap, Rio Vista and Tolar. That same realignment left Breckenridge in 3A-Division 1 but moved the Buckaroos to a district including Clyde, Early, Eastland, Jim Ned-Tuscola and Wall.

Despite the win in the season opener against Jacksboro, the Buckaroos will continue to look to improve their game, Hubble said. “It’s always good to correct things with a win,” he said. “We’re going to see a video, and we’re going to see a ton of things that are exciting. Then we’re going to see things that we’ve gotta get corrected, because we don’t want to just win the first one, we want to go win them all.”

For more photos from the game, click here to see the Breckenridge Texan photo gallery.

Story by Tony Pilkington and Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

Cutline, top photo: Buckaroo Quarterback Kevin Franco (No. 5) hands off the football to Angel Ruiz (No. 9) in Friday night’s game against the Jacksboro Tigers. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

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