Raiders Finish Bucks Comeback Season, 47-6

MONTGOMERY – In a game almost a mirror image of the previous Friday night encounter, the Montgomery Red Raider football team just wore down the Bucktail Bucks, finishing with a 47-6 win Friday night. The victory pushed the 6-5 Raiders into the District 4 Class A final game next weekend while the loss ended the Bucks’ bounce-back year at 4-7, a vast improvement over an 0-10 log in 2016.

Bucktail would move the ball early, sparked by a 14 yard run from junior Tanner Riggle but the drive was halted and Montgomery used a veteran line and a standout tailback in Hunter Budman to notch an initial score on a 4-yard run from quarterback Brayden Strouse. The game stayed 7-0 Montgomery into the second period but the Raiders bunched three touchdowns in the period to lead 27-0 at the half. Their last score of the half came when Bucks quarterback Richard Perry unfortunately slipped while punting. The ball went up in the air like an infield fly and Montgomery’s Trevor Kennedy fielded it and ran it back for a 43-yard score. The Bucks meanwhile had trouble moving the ball for much of the rest of the half.

Montgomery would notch two more touchdowns on their first two possessions in the third quarter, making the score 40-0 and sending the game into the mercy rule. The Bucks would bounce back with a 44-yard drive, capped off by a 1-yard touchdown run from freshman Gage Sutliff; the rush for extra point was stopped just short. Montgomery would tack on a final period score to set the final at 47-6.

Sutliff’s return, out with an injury since game five, helped the Bucks on both sides of the ball but Montgomery, with a much larger roster, wore down a Bucktail team which dressed 15 players. But as all season, the Bucks never quit and battled until the final horn sounded.

Both Riggle and Sutliff finished with 65 rushing yards each, giving Riggle 968 yards on the season and Sutliff, who was out half the season, 441 yards for the year. Both return next year, along with quarterback Perry, a junior.