Redskins Finish Strongly in Win Over Buffaloes

It was 7-6 Liberal Redskins leading the visiting Garden City Buffaloes with five seconds remaining in the third quarter.  Liberal had the ball on their own four.  Momentum was with Garden City after two strip sacks in the quarter.  But Xavier Porras and blockers changed the trajectory of the game as Porras ripped off a 96 yard touchdown run from north to south on the way to a 23-6 Redskin win over the visiting Garden City Buffaloes Friday night at Redskin Field.

It was a low scoring first half.  But Liberal’s first drive was impressive as the Skins went 62 yards on five plays capped by a Xavier Tafoya 13 yard touchdown run with 7:25 to play in the first quarter.  After a 64 yard pass play from Tevin Cotter to James Fieser, LHS fumbled on the next play and Garden City’s Evan Finch recovered on the GCHS 15 yard line.  It was 7-0 Redskins at halftime.  The turnover bug bit LHS in the third quarter as the Buffaloes forced two fumbles on strip sacks.  One resulted in Garden City ball on the LHS 40 and the other on Liberal’s 15.  The latter turnover resulted in a Mario Ruiz 17 yard TD run at the 3:06 mark of the third quarter.  But Garden City had 12 men on the field for the extra point which had sailed through the uprights to tie the game.  But the penalty resulted in Garden City needing to make a 35 yard extra point which sailed wide left preserving Liberal’s lead of 7-6.  Porras 96 yard run with five seconds remaining in the third ignited the home crowd and gave Liberal a 14-6 lead after the Horacio Casas PAT.  Liberal’s safety with 3:03 to play made the score 16-6.  Xavier Porras ran the field from left to right for a 50 yard touchdown run with 2:46 to play to make it 23-6 after the point after.

LHS had 361 yards. Xavier Porras 18 times for 208 yards and two touchdowns. James Fieser had five catches for 109 yards. Tevin Cotter was 9-15 for 159 yards.  Marco Alonso was Epic Touch Player of the Game and had two sacks.  Adan Amador had 16 tackles and Xavier Tafoya added 13 tackles.  Landon Martinez had 10 tackles.  Gio Duran had nine tackles and three for loss.  Wyatt Mannel had nine tackles.  Ayden Juarez had eight tackles and one tackle for loss.  Tyren Holmes had seven tackles and one for loss.  Garden City had 257 yards and Mario Ruiz rushed for 211 yards.

Liberal has defeated Garden City back to back seasons for the first time since 2004-05.  LHS is 4-1 and 1-1 in the WAC while Garden City is 1-4 and 0-2 in the WAC.  Liberal hosts Great Bend Friday night at 7pm at the Gary Cornelsen Sports Complex.  Redskin Pre-game at 6pm on 1270 and 92.3.