While the scoreboard showed one thing, that is not necessarily the case.
The Langley Rams remained unbeaten after week 3 of the B.C. Junior Football Conference thanks to a 66-8 victory over the visiting Chillwack Huskers (0-3) at McLeod Park on Saturday.
“We didn’t perform the way we would have liked, regardless of what the score was,” said Langley coach Jeff Alamolhoda.
“We took a couple of plays off during the game and we took way too many penalties. “We just weren’t playing at the level that we know we are capable of, regardless of what the score looked like. And when we did play at that level, then we ran away with that game.”
The Rams were up 21-7 after the first quarter, and then tacked on another 17 points before the half. The rout continued in the second half with 21 more points in the third and then one more touchdown in the fourth for the 66-8 final score.
“At the end of the day, our guys put it back together, they got loud on the sidelines and they got encouraged,” Alamolhoda said.
They fought real hard to do the things right. They reduced the penalties in the second half and put points on the board and got stops when they needed to.”
Quarterback Greg Bowcott continued his great start to the season with another five touchdown passes, as well as one rushing score.
He finished with 276 yards on just 10 completions while back-up quarterback Cecil Belanger got mop-up duty and was a perfect 4-for-4 capped off with a touchdown pass.
Reigning league offensive player of the week receiver Malcolm Williams had another monster game, hauling in three more touchdown passes — to give him six in the past two weeks — and 105 yards.
Michael Patko, Steven Martinez and Nick Downey also caught touchdown scores.
Downey also had two punt returns for touchdowns — a 60-yarder and a 63-yarder — and finished the night with 201 return yards. That puts him over 2,400 return yards, bettering the league record of 2,393 held by former Vancouver Island Shark/Victoria Rebels player Jason Marsh, who played from 1997 to 2001.
Alamolhoda was impressed by the Rams’ special teams play, calling it the only consistent part of the team’s game from start to finish.
Running back Daniel Xavier was the workhorse out of the backfield, running the ball 14 times for 151 yards, nearly 11 yards per carry.
The rest of the points came from feet of the Langley kickers.
Nick Naylor nailed a 45-yard field goal and six point-after attempts while Steve Thomas was 3-for-3 on his PATs.
The defence was also dominant, as they held the Huskers (0-3) to 62 yards rushing and 77 yards passing.
Linebacker Arie Nakagawa led the way with five tackles.
The Rams also had four quarterback sacks — Brandon Klein had a pair and Evan Foster and Jarron Ralf had one apiece.
Jeremy Preston came up with a fumble recovery and Nick Stoyeff intercepted the final pass of the game.
Next up for Langley is a game on Saturday (Aug. 25) when they host the Okanagan Sun (1-2) at McLeod Park. Kick off is at 7 p.m.