Sometimes, even in a team sport such as football, one player can dominate a game.
Buchanan Bears running back and University of Georgia commit Kendall Milton is one of those players.
Milton went on a rampage Friday night at Lamonica Stadium with a four-touchdown performance in his team’s 40-14 rout of the Clovis East Timberwolves.
“I’m fortunate enough to have a line that provides for me, that gets the extra yards to open up the holes and I gotta pay them back for it. I try to break those big runs and make something happen,” Milton said.
And make something happen he did.
After the Timberwolves jumped ahead on a 4-yard touchdown pass from Sean Kelly to Ryan Hak, Milton went to work.
On the Bears’ first offensive possession, Milton dashed and gashed the Timberwolves defense, finding his way down the right sideline and into paydirt for a 16-yard score, giving the Bears a 7-6 lead due to a Timberwolves missed extra point.
Again, the Timberwolves jumped out ahead of the Bears on a bruising 8-yard rumble to the end zone by Blake Baldwin, followed by a successful 2-point conversion, and again, Milton answered.
The senior running back broke through the line of scrimmage with a juke followed by his explosive speed and he outraced any and all Timberwolves defenders to the endzone for a 40-yard score to knot the game up at 14 with 8:43 left in the second quarter.
The Bears’ defense this time found its footing, forcing a Timberwolves punt all the way back to the Buchanan 14-yard-line.
A few short plays later, Milton flashed that elite speed and power by running through several Timberwolves on his way to his third TD of the game, this of the 74-yard variety.
But what makes the Bears offense so potent is that they have other playmakers to help supplement Milton’s dominance.
Quarterback Ian Kirby spread the wealth early with a 3-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Hernandez to increase the Buchanan lead to 26-14 just 26 seconds before halftime.
Head coach Matt Giordano said that is what he likes to see from his offense.
“What I was really happy to see tonight is that we were balanced,” Giordano said. “We were running the ball well, we were throwing the ball well. People were making good catches, we were finishing off the runs.”
Milton finished another of those runs with 51 seconds in the third quarter on a 30-yard scamper, punctuating one of the best performances of the season and his high school career.
It was Milton’s 12th touchdown in the last four games, making up for lost time when he was sidelined with a leg injury for several games early in the season.
Timberwolves head coach Ryan Reynolds marveled at how Milton has been able to be so dominant.
“He’s just a special kid,” Reynolds said. “He’s just a different type of football player. There was a time we tried to tackle him and they just bounced off of him.”
The Timberwolves will look to bounce back in their final game of the regular season in a date with the unbeaten and 12th ranked team in California Central Grizzlies.
Buchanan will take its three-game win streak into a matchup with the reeling Clovis North Broncos, which have lost three straight after starting the season 6-0.
Both games will be on Nov. 1 at 7 p.m.