Broncos manhandle Longhorns

Lazbuddie’s Coby Wilkerson needed two quarters to deliver the knockout blow to Floyd’s Jerrod Long.

It took Floyd two more quarters to do the same to the Longhorns.

Long accounted for 157 yards of offense and a touchdown in the first half, but paced the sidelines in the second half of Floyd’s 62-14 win Saturday at Portales Junior High School.

Wade Mobley scored three second-half touchdown, including a 23-yard reception to end the game via the 45-point mercy rule with 6:45 to go in the fourth quarter.

Floyd improves to 2-1 following its homecoming win.

Long caught a 27-yard touchdown and left Wilkerson standing still on a spin move in the first quarter. One quarter later, Long was trying to get into the end zone on a dash and Wilkerson wasn’t fooled.

“I did this spin move, turned around and this guy rocked me,” said the sophomore, who is the brother of former Portales and Floyd fullback Less Long. “I’m looking around like, ‘Where am I?’”

Long was stopped in his tracks at the Lazbuddie 4, and was told by the officials to stay on the ground. He walked back to the sidelines with a smile, and the Broncos finished off the drive with Eric Irvin’s 4-yard reception to end the first half scoring.

“It felt like someone just threw a basketball as hard as they could at my head. It was crazy,” Long said.

Long also had 40 yards passing and 90 yards rushing. He was held out of the second half as a precaution, one Floyd coach Jeff Gillespie felt was only right to take with a 34-8 halftime lead.

“He just got his bell run a little bit,” Gillespie said. “If we needed him, he could have played, but there wasn’t a (point in) taking a risk.

“It was just a matter of time as far as 45, and we wanted to put some younger kids in there. I was trying to make sure everyone played for their homecoming.”

Lazbuddie (0-3) kept Floyd from ending the game quickly in the second half, as Raul Martin scored on a 48-yard reception midway through the third. Nicholas Cuevas scored the other touchdown for the Longhorns, picking up a teammate’s fumble and going 1 yard for the score.

The Longhorns are in a rebuilding state, coming off of a three-win season.

“Turnovers killed us,” Lazbuddie coach Mark Osmus said. “We’re just going to try to cut down on turnovers. (As for) those opportunities we had to score and we didn’t, we’ve got to take care of those opportunities.”

The Broncos split up passing duties between Long, Chance Chenault and Manny Carrillo, all of whom had touchdown tosses. Eric Irvin had three touchdown catches, while Brad Lee and Ryan Kropf each added one.