RANGELY | The Soroco Rams, with their 5-1 record (1-1 in the Western Slope League), traveled to Rangely to take on the Panthers on the Rangely Nick Lancaster Memorial game. The Panthers came into the game with a 4-2 record and were looking to stretch their mark to 5-2 and even their Western Slope record to 2-2. Unfortunately, the Rams and their ground attack was too much for the Panthers to handle. Soroco’s quarterback, Tyler Wixom had himself a great game as he threw for 45 yards, rushed for 190 yards and scored four touchdowns for the Rams. When the Panthers were able to sustain a drive and score the Rams kept their composure and marched back down the field and scored themselves.
Zane Varner led the Panthers offense in rushing with 139 yards on 22 attempts and one touchdown. Varner also added one two-point conversion to help the Panthers. Anthony Lujan added to the Panthers offense with 135 yards passing on four completions. Three of the completions were made to Ryan Richens who had 121 yards receiving with three touchdowns. Richens longest reception came on a 60-yard pass from Anthony Lujan. Richens also amounted 22 yards rushing on 4 attempts. Lujan’s other completion went to Austin Davis for a 14-yard game.
The Panther defense was led for the second week in a row by Austin Davis who had an amazing game with 21 tackles and three of those tackles for loss. Anthony Lujan added nine tackles to the team total along with eight coming from Gabe Polley and Timothy Scoggins. Scoggins was also able to add two tackles for loss. This season the Panthers have numerous players in the top 10 with Anthony Lujan coming in at fourth in the state in total tackles with 98 total tackles. Austin Davis joined the top 10 this week with 78 total tackles. Gabe Polley is second in 8-man football with 13.5 tackles for loss. All these stats are from the Mile-High Preps Report.
The Panthers will look to get on the winning side again as they will travel to play the Gilpin County Eagles on Friday, Oct. 25. The Panthers will then close out their regular season on Thursday, Oct. 31. The Panthers are still in contention for an at-large berth into the Colorado 8-man state playoffs. The Panthers are currently sitting at No. 12 in RPI according to the CHSAA RPI rankings for week eight in football.
Special to the Herald Times
