Grinding out possessions in the first half and turning them into touchdown drives, the Bluffton Tigers finally found a way to beat South Adams Friday night and in doing so, made coach Brent Kunkel the winningest coach in the school’s long history in a 41-6 blowout Week Three victory.
The home team found a way to completely eliminate the South Adams run game and as the lead on the Bluffton scoreboard grew more lopsided, the Tigers were able to anticipate the pass and keep the Starfires off the scoreboard until the running clock had been implemented.
While Bluffton was systematically better on the field, it was a couple of big plays by Andrew Hunt that made the game more of a blowout than a solid victory.
Hunt had just four carries on the ground, but registered 104 yards of rushing. He scored on a ten-yard run in the first quarter to put Bluffton up 13-0.
Then Hunt came up with the most exciting play of the game.
With four minutes left in the first half, the Bluffton defense forced 2nd and long with a gang tackle of Colton Bollenbacher. A pair of penalties on the Starfires and a fine solo tackle by Hutch Craighead forced third and 17 with just over two minutes remaining. Wanner looked downfield for a receiver, but his pass was knocked away by none other than Andrew Hunt.
On fourth down, it was the same two nemeses from the two teams. Wanner punted the ball away to Hunt, who had to go backwards to play the ball on the bounce. He made three men miss before he hit midfield, then raced down his own sideline, where a big block was sprung by Lukas Gehrett, leaving the returner one man to beat as he approached the goal line. Hunt finished off his 61-yard punt return by smashing the final would-be tackler at the goal line to make it 19-0 heading into halftime.
Hunt had been kept in check on his previous punt return, but the Bluffton defense held their ground all night against the typically potent Starfire offense, holding Owen Wanner to just 74 yards passing.
Breaking a seven-game losing streak, the Tigers had not gotten the better of their rivals from the east since 2015, when coach Grant Moser had just begun his tenure and the Starfires were just 1-9.
Quarterback Braxton Betancourt completed just three passes, including the opening score to Fletcher Wenger, on eight attempts for 33 yards, but it was the running game of the Tigers that did the damage. Along with Hunt’s total, the Tigers got 120 yards from Tucker Jenkins, who got most of the carries in the first half before Bluffton brought in Cooper Craig for the second half. The freshman running back had 96 yards on 16 carries and scored twice from inside the five in the second half.
South Adams’ only score came during the running clock when Bollenbacher knocked it in from 11 yards out in the fourth quarter.
Luke Bauman led all players with nine tackles, while Dillan Ramirez had seven.
Both teams will face stiff tests next week as ACAC play continues. Bluffton will travel to Woodlan, while South Adams will head back to Adams Central to “host” Heritage in WZBD’s game of the week.
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