Cowboys drop Lake County 21-6 on the road

MEEKER I The Meeker Cowboys dropped the Lake County team in Leadville Friday night. The score was 21-6 at half time and the second half both defenses took over.
The defense, led by coach Aaron Zielinske, tackled runners behind the line of scrimmage on 13 different plays, a very high total. The defensive unit had 11 players with five or more tackles, and that is good team defense. The Black and Gold had six men with eight or more tackles, which is also outstanding.
A key play in the game came when Meeker stopped a Lake County touchdown with an outstanding goal line stand. The defense recorded four turnovers, one of which was an interception by Raul Lopez. Lopez also did the punting, kickoffs, etc. for the kicking game and did a good job. Leading tackles for the evening were J.R. Crawford and linebacker Tala Atoafa with 10 each. Jake Phelan, Willis Begay and T.J. Shelton followed with nine each. Nate Walsh chipped in with eight stops.
The Black and Gold defense now has 41 plays behind the LOS for the 2012 season. Leading the way with tackles behind the LOS are Scott Smith, who has 10 for the year, followed by Crawford, Devon Pontine and Shelton, with six each. Tristin Pelloni had another interception, giving him three for the season and the team with eight for the year.
The defensive line did an outstanding job for the entire game. They consist of Scott and Alex Smith, Crawford, Shelton, Pontine and Noah Overton.
Meeker had two young men break 100 yards rushing. This is a salute to these men and shows an outstanding job of run blocking by the offensive line. The offense was led by freshman fullback Shelton, who ran 16 times for 154 yards, including a 72 yard run for a touchdown. He scored twice, giving him six TDs for the year. Sebastian Clarke broke the 100 yard mark in 12 attempts, running for 106 for the night. All in all the ‘Boys ran for 336 yards. Clarke leads the team in scoring and rushing for the season.
Coach Aven did an outstanding job of keeping the injury-ridden offensive line intact and placing a number of men in these important positions. Joe Newman, Ricky Jeffrey, Austin Brown, Ruben Royball, Nakoma Bailey, Adrian Shroyer, Kash Atwood, Pontine and Overton worked the run blocking to an art. Four of these young men are freshmen.
Jake Phelan had to work with four different centers in the course of the night and he did well. Jake ran 18 times and gained 71 key yards. This was only Jake’s second start and with the aid of junior QB Dylan Mobley the offense had 15 first downs to go with the 336 yards rushing. The Cowboys played 29 different players in this game. Clarke leads in number of plays for the Black and Gold, with 551 for the season, followed by J.C. Henderson, with 513. The Cowboys have played 21 men over 100 plays this season. Three men have played 500 or more plays for the Cowboys.
This was the first conference game of the year. The Cowboys host Paonia next Friday night for homecoming. The Cowboy Golf Kickoff Classic begins Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m.