The whoops, hollers and congratulatory back slaps between Round Valley High School head football coach Marcus Bell and his 27-man roster spilled onto their domed home field before sweeping him into their locker room Friday, Oct. 30, after his first win over Snowflake High School.

When last year's 2A Conference Coach of the Year was at last able to emerge, he did so as the new top dog in the 3A East Region after a 37-29 victory, his first in his 10 seasons as Elks head coach, which handed the Lobos their first loss.

“It’s a great win for our program,” said Bell, defending 2A state champion and one of just three 3A coaches thus far in 2020 to achieve a 3-0 region record. “Our coaches had a great game plan. I know there were people out there making plays all the way around.”

That list of players would have to start with senior quarterback Owen Young and his primary running back, junior Seth Wiltbank. Young threw for 191 yards and two touchdowns, while Wiltbank ran for 204 yards and two more scores on 21 carries.

“Our offensive line did a great job,” Bell said. “Owen Young played his heart out on both sides of the football [and] made some huge stops at linebacker.”

It was Young’s final tackle of the six he had on the night that finished off the scrappy Lobos, stopping senior Snowflake running back Terren Green in Elks territory three plays after the Lobos got the ball back at their own 31-yard-line with 23 seconds to play.

By that point, Snowflake head coach Kay Solomon had burned all three of his timeouts, so Young’s inbounds tackle prevented a final attempt by junior quarterback Caden Cantrell at a game-tying Hail Mary.

Cantrell’s longest completion of the night had come the drive prior, a quick screen pass to running back Mayson McKinlay that the senior broke downfield for a 68-yard score. Cantrell’s two-point conversion pass was complete to tight end Rev Brimhall with 3:46 remaining, keeping it a one-score margin.

“Credit to their whole team and coaching staff: they put together a good game plan, and executed it,” said Solomon, whose Lobos continue to share an identical overall mark with Round Valley of 4-1. “I think we did, too. We just didn’t execute it quite as well. Hopefully, we’ll get another chance to do that against the same team.”

Green rushed for 160 yards on the night and Snowflake’s other three touchdowns, including his first on the very first offensive play from scrimmage, a 75-yard carry he busted open between his right tackle and right guard that set the tone in the shootout.

“We’ve got some depth on offense,” Solomon said. “We just didn’t shut them down.”

Wiltbank capped a more sustained, six-minute drive with a four-yard sweep around right end to tie the score. Three minutes later, the Elks’ special teams got in the act, blocking a punt by Snowflake junior Sam Crockett at his own 11. Two plays later, Young would capitalize by taking the football into the end zone himself from three yards out.

Although Green would help the Lobos pull back into another tie with a three-yard scoring rush of his own two minutes into the second quarter, Round Valley would never again relinquish the lead, as Young began finding wide receivers Rylee Hamblin and Jovan Ortiz downfield.

“Our receivers, they know if they don’t block, they don’t get the ball,” Bell said. “They’ve been practicing downfield since we started as a program. They take pride in that.”

It paid off going into halftime as well as coming out of it. Young found Hamblin from 24 yards out down the middle to take a 20-14 halftime lead, then, off another play-action fake to Wiltbank, rolled out and found Ortiz 65 yards downfield to establish a 13-point lead two plays into the third quarter.

Six minutes later, Wiltbank got his big play, following up a 12-yard reception with a 67-yard dash down the sideline that could not be stopped.

“We’ve got work to do on both sides of the ball,” Solomon said. “So we’ll go break down film, regroup, and [in] a couple more games, we have the playoffs, and we’ll see where we go from there.”

By the end of the third quarter, an 18-yard score by Green narrowed the margin, but the damage had been done. Sophomore Kevin Flores boomed a 46-yard field goal with less than 10 minutes to play to cap the scoring for the Elks.

“It’s a team effort,” Bell said. “That’s what we preach in our program. It was one of those games where it takes everybody. Everybody was a part of this win.”