Spartans shock Greenwave

SPRING CREEK — The Spartans varsity football team scored a major upset Friday, defeating the Greenwave, 42-25, in Northern 3A football.

Fallon falls to 7-2 overall, 6-2 in league, two games behind league-leading Truckee, which defeated Truckee Friday with a late rally. Spring Creek improves to 6-3, 6-2 in league, but based on head-to-head completion, the Spartans hold second place for the playoffs, with Fallon in third. Including last year’s playoff matchup, Fallon has lost three straight games to Spring Creek. Fallon closes the regular season Thursday at Lowry High School.

Spring Creek took advantage of Fallon’s inability to stop the outside run in the first half.

“Offensively we switched a lot of plays with Dakota Larson, and ran a lot of outside plays that worked well for us tonight,” said Spartans first-year coach Mike Tournahu.

The Spartans’ Jason Painter scored a touchdown in the first quarter followed by the Greenwave minutes later from Sean McCormick on a 1-yard end around, and the point-after kick by Brock Richardson easily cleared the field goal posts. Spring Creek rolled in its next series, aided by a 20-yard run. Larson rushed for a 50-plus yard touchdown to give Spring Creek a 13-7 lead with Painter kicking the extra point.

“We just came out a little flat especially with a game of that magnitude. There’s no excuse for it,” said Fallon coach Brooke Hill. “We didn’t play well. We kind of let things snowball a little bit. We were just in a tailspin for most of the first half.”

In the second quarter, the Spartans scored a touchdown within the first minute of the second quarter. Painter scored his touchdown, and with the conversion, the Spartans widened their lead to 21-7.

Spring Creek’s offense piled it on the Greenwave in the first half. Hunter Buzzetti scored a touchdown and Ethan Lulay kicked the extra point to give Spring Creek a 28-7 lead.

Painter scored a touchdown on an 80-yard run as the Spartans led 35-7 at halftime.

Within the first few minutes of the third quarter, Christian Nemeth snagged a 19-yard pass from McCormick and scored Fallon’s second touchdown, but the kick was no good as the Wave trailed 35-13.

The final quarter remained slow and steady as the Spartans scored another touchdown from Jake Oliphant, and Lulay’s kick gave Spring Creek a 42-13 lead. The Greenwave scored on a touchdown in the final two minutes on a 7-yard pass to Clayton Steelmon deep in the middle of the end zone. The kick for the extra point was no good.

The last play of the game came with 38 seconds left as Richardson scored a touchdown on 11-yard pass play.

“There were definitely some positives with the way we played in the second half,” Hill said.