Panthers claw Grand Junction

RANGELY — The Rangely Panther football team got its first win of the season last Thursday against the Grand Junction Tigers.
Rangely had a very nice day in the air with 303 passing yards to six receivers including one offensive lineman.
Kanden Brady had a good night with four touchdowns and completed 61 percent of his passes. Final score of the game was 26-12.
All of the scoring for both teams came in the second quarter.
Rangely led off with three touchdowns. The first was a 24-yard pass to Travis Witherell.
Keane Raley caught the second touchdown over his shoulder in the corner of the end zone for 15 yards.
Mark Perzinski caught the third on a 45-yard pass and outran the defense to the end zone. Grand Junction came back on the ground with an 11-yard run.
Kanden Brady answered back a minute later with a 36-yard strike to Adam Dahl for Rangely’s fourth score of the quarter.
Finally, the Tigers hit a 27-yard post in the end zone. Michael Morton hit two of his four extra point attempts for the Panthers so the tally after the period was 26-12.
“I don’t think that I’ve seen 38 points scored in one quarter with no other scoring in the game,” said coach Mark Jansen. “It was quite a quarter. A couple of other fun things that happened in the game were the catches made by offensive and defensive linemen during the game.”
Kindal Cushman caught an offensive pass from Kanden Brady that bounced off a receiver so Cushman has six yards receiving on the season.
Michael Morton returned a punt that was blocked into the air. Morton’s quick reflexes helped him to grab the ball and gave him eight return yards.
He actually saw the end zone on this play but was ripped down by his shoestring.
Cushman also had a great night punting. He had two punts for 83 yards with a long of 51 yards.
The Panther defense registered two sacks and seven tackles-for-loss. Blake Mecham led the defense with 8.5 tackles. Blake was joined by Cushman and Nathan Pearce as the top three tacklers.
“It’s nice when the top tacklers are all linemen,” Jansen said.
The Panthers start league play as they face the Hotchkiss Bulldogs this week at Hotchkiss. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.