By Moses Leos III

The Lehman Lobos football team hosted district heavyweights, the Lake Travis Cavaliers, on Friday night at Shelton Stadium. The Lobos put up a fight but the Cavs ran away with the game, winning on the road 51-14.

While the game was going to be tough for the Lobos regardless, things got a lot harder without starting quarterback Jeremy Schilhab, who was out with a foot injury, and without backup Josh Tobias.

Lehman running back JR Torres took on the quarterback role and performed as well as he could under tough circumstances.

Lake Travis got the scoring started early on their first drive. A fourplay drive was capped off with Cavs’ Abe Willows pounding into the end zone from eight yards out. Near the end of the first quarter, Lake Travis’ Dominic De Lira passed it out to Willows who took it from there. A 20-yard touchdown pass gave the Cavs a 13-0 lead.

While Lehman struggled offensively, Lake Travis’ offense continued to flow. On its next drive, the Cavs needed just three plays to score; once again it was Willows with his second rushing touchdown, and third of the game overall.

Just before halftime, Lehman got tricky with its play-calling. Torres threw a quick screen pass to Jaren Sayles who wound up and heaved it downfield to a wide open Brett Wagner for a 33 yard gain. Two plays later Torres found Sayles again open downfield. Sayles broke several tackles and found his way into the end zone for a hard-fought, 27-yard touchdown.

Sayles, a former quarterback in middle school, was grinning ear to ear after the game.

“I love throwing the ball to ‘Wags’ because I can just chunk it out there and he will run under it,” Sayles said.

Wagner was excited about the trick play, too.

“We have been wanting to run that play for a while, and tonight we finally got to do it,” he said.

The excitement around the stadium was short lived as Lake Travis scored in about half a minute. This time De Lira threw a perfect pass to his receiver Grant Foster for a 39-yard touchdown, and the Cavs took a 27-7 lead into halftime.

The second half was a near repeat of the first.

Lake Travis came out and moved the ball quickly on offense. De Lira threw a screen pass to Willows who took it 53 yards for his fourth touchdown of the game, giving the Cavs a 34-7 lead.

The Lake Travis offense made one big mistake, however. They tried to run a reverse pass and catch the Lobos off guard, but Jon Herrera was in the right place at the right time. Herrera snagged the ball out of the air and got the ball back for Lehman on the interception.

Lake Travis added two more touchdowns to take a 48-7 lead, but Lehman continued to fight.

The Lobos took another blow though when Torres was hit hard and taken out of the game. Wagner stepped up to play quarterback and the offense started to click. The offensive line started opening up holes. Wagner found one of those holes and took it 31 yards for a Lobo touchdown.

Although it wasn’t going to win the game for Lehman, it was a sign that they hadn’t given up. Coach Todd Raymond was proud of his team’s effort.

“I felt like we fi nished the game fi nally,” he said. “Our kids stepped up and really competed.”

Lehman will try to bounce back next week as they travel to play at Del Valle.