Second-half scores lead Ravens

HOUSTON -- If the Eielson Ravens make a highlight video of the 2004 season, Willie Nelson will have to be on the soundtrack. On virtually a never ending road trip which has spanned the first five weeks of the season, the Ravens found themselves on the road again with Houston the latest destination on their travel log.

Eielson scored twice in the final 56 seconds of the first half and earned a 29-0 win over the Houston Hawks at Houston High School on Saturday.

With the season more than halfway over, Eielson has truly been everywhere, hitting spots such as Kenai, Palmer, Nikiski and Houston, without even setting foot on its own turf on Eielson Air Force Base. The win over the Hawks was Eielson's second win at Houston High School this season. A home game with Seward was moved to Houston earlier this season because of poor air quality in the Fairbanks area.

"This is our second home," Eielson head coach David DeVaughn said.

DeVaughn said following the game he was beginning to see the effect of the endless road trip on his players.

"There was a little bit of that road weariness," DeVaughn said. "We were real flat with execution today."

Eielson took a 9-0 lead late in the second quarter and caught a pair of breaks in the final minute of the first half. The Ravens took over on the Houston 46-yard-line after holding the Hawks on fourth down, and on the first play of the series, Eielson quarterback Evan Skinner dumped a screen pass to Nick Scales. The shifty tailback squirted his way through the defense and took the play the length for the touchdown.

"That's the good thing about throwing to the running back, they're used to getting up field," DeVaughn said.

Scales caught three passes for 106 yards in the first half, with each catch coming just a few yards from the line of scrimmage. Scales also burned the Hawks for receptions of 34 and 26 yards on simple swing passes.

"Everybody knows that our receivers will go deep, so our swings are just naturally created off that," Skinner said. "Those are just gimme yards."

Following the Scales score on the first play of the ensuing Houston drive, Raven defensive lineman Chad Whaley ripped the ball out of the hands of Hawk fullback Daniel Harvey as a flock of Ravens pushed Harvey behind the line of scrimmage. The Whaley recovery returned the ball to Eielson, and three plays later Solomon Wright veered off the right side of the Raven line into the end zone. The score came with just 10 seconds left in the half, giving Eielson 13 points within a 46-second span.

"We gave them a couple extra in that last minute of the first half," Houston head coach Norm Bouchard said. "We have to make sure we play 24 minutes. We didn't -- we took a minute off there."

Within a minute the Ravens went from going in 9-0 at the half, to going into the third quarter with a 22-point lead.

"If we could have gone in at the half 9-0 we'd felt pretty dang good," Bouchard said.

Skinner caught the Houston defensive backfield out of place early in the second quarter as he found Donnie McKee on a 34-yard swing pass for a touchdown. Houston's far side cornerback started the fourth-down play in a punt return formation, and before the Hawks could shift a defensive back toward the far end, McKee had found a hole in the Houston defense and brought in the pass.

In the second half, Houston held the Ravens to just seven points.

"I felt like our kids played their hearts out in the second half," Bouchard said. "They earned a couple things, but we didn't give them anything. They played like men."

Wright did the lone damage for the Ravens in the final two frames. The tailback had eight carries for 134 yards in the second half, running each time off the right side of the Raven line.

Random hits … Sophomore tailback Nick Rogers did not play in the second half, due to injury … Scales and Houston defensive back Victor Waag recorded interceptions in the contest … Skinner and Hawk defensive lineman Justin Vasquez recovered fumbles … After rushing for 362 yards in the last two games, Houston running back Karl Thistle was held to 61 yards on 18 carries.