Longhorns heading to playoffs after win in Valentine

    The CCS Longhorn football team traveled to Valentine Friday Oct. 20 for the final regular season game.
    The Longhorns kept it on the ground and chewed up 251 yards rushing on the night, winning a lopsided 35-0 game.
    The Longhorns got the ball first when Reeves covered a squib kick at the Longhorn 37.
    Keeping it on the ground for the entire drive, the Longhorns methodically kept the Badgers guessing which back had the ball.
    On the tenth play of the drive, Malachi Christensen called his own number and ran in for the touchdown from two yards out. James McArthur added the extra point to give the Horns the lead 7-0.
    After a touchback on the kick-off, Valentine couldn’t get anything going and went three and out. Tucker Mollendor broke up the middle and nearly blocked the punt, causing it to go out of bounds at the Badger 18.
    The offense went back to work pounding it on the ground. It only took four plays with Thomas Reeves finishing the drive with a three yard touchdown run. McArthur’s kick was good and the Longhorns led 14-0.
    Once again the Longhorns shut down Valentine in three downs, but on the fourth down punt, Mollendor just missed the ball and hit the kicker, bringing out the roughing the kicker flag and a 15 yard penalty with a fresh set of downs.
    The badgers started to mix in some passes with a little success and got into Longhorn territory before turning the ball over on downs when a fourth down pass fell incomplete.
    The Badger defense stepped up and held the Longhorns to three and out for the first time of the night. Cooper Dillan got off a good punt that was fair caught at the Badger 35.
    After a holding call on first down backed up the badgers, the defense shut them down bringing up a punt from their own 24.
    This time Mollendor got his hands on the ball and blocked the punt giving the Longhorns great field position on the Valentine 16.
    After a two yard run on first down, Dillan carried to near the goal line but a holding call backed it up to the 21.
    On his first pass of the game, Christensen found Tristan Jablonski in the endzone and Jablonski pulled in the contested pass for a touchdown. McArthur’s kick was good and the Horns led 21-0.The Longhorns would get one more possession in the first half with Christensen capping it off with a one yard QB sneak. The kick was good and the Longhorns led 28-0 at halftime.
    The Badgers got the ball to start the second half. Finding no room running the ball, Valentine committed to the passing game.
    The Horns defense responded well with McArthur intercepting a pass at the Valentine 49 yard line.
    Four plays later Reeves got his second touchdown of the night on an eight yard run over the right side. The kick was good bringing the score to 35-0 which made it a running clock for the rest of the game.
    The Longhorns got to play a lot of the younger players for the remainder of the game.
    This win clinched the C2-7 District Championship and the automatic birth into the playoffs.
Game stats:
    Christensen was 1/2 passing for 24 yards, 1 TD and no interceptions.
    Reeves led the rushing with 13 carries for 121 yards and 2 TD’s, Mollendor 8/63, Dillan 5/23, Co 3/21, Hubbard 6/25, Moreno 1/6, Christensen 2/3 with 2 TD’s, McArthur 1/-4, Hoover 1/-7.
    Receiving; Jablonski 1/24 with 1 TD.
    On defense the leading tacklers where; Co, Peterson and O’Neil-6, Herbert,Heerman-4, Jablonski, Reeves, Hubbard, Mollendor-3, Christensen, McArthur-2, Dillan, Tarin, Mendenhall, Clevenger-1.
    CCS had 275 total yards, 24 passing and 251 rushing while  Valentine had 145 total yards, 66 passing and 79 rushing.
Next action
    The Longhorns got the #12 seed in the 16 seed tournament and will travel to #5 Malcolm Friday Oct. 27 for a 5:00 p.m. MT. game. Malcolm enters the playoffs with a record of 8-1, having only lost to 8-1 Oakland Craig who is #2 seed in the bracket.
    If the Horns win Friday, the second round will be played Friday Nov. 3 and they would face the winner of #13 Wilber-Clatonia and #4 Fillmore Central. If CCS wins they will be assured a home game the second round.
    The full bracket is shown above.