From start to finish, it was an awesome night for the Levelland Lobos football team as they showed off in front of a massive Homecoming crowd, beating the Brownfield Cubs 50-0 to improve to 2-2. The Lobos controlled the entirety of the game as both sides of the ball played in harmony together and the complimentary play resulted in a blowout victory. And winning is always nice, but Head Coach Lyle Leong acknowledged this win meant more because of the occasion. “It’s really important for the kids, for everybody that came out, for everyone that’s done it before us. Anytime we win, our goal is to win one game a week. Is it sweeter because it’s homecoming? Of course,” Leong said. “I love to see my kids win because of the hard work and the type of kids they are, and the coaches too. We held them to a shutout, put up 50 points, and the coaches did a great job. You know, you surround yourself with better people and it makes you look pretty good sometimes.” Before this game, the Levelland defense was giving up 36 points a game on average and Brownfield had scored on all their opponents this year, so it was a heck of a performance. Pair that with the fact that Levelland benched its starters late in the third quarter and it’s even more impressive. The defense turned the Cubs over on downs numerous times and forced a bunch of three-and-outs, and sophomore cornerback Bryson Golightly had an interception. They held Brownfield to 130 total yards offensively, which Coach Leong credited to the cohesiveness of his defensive staff and players. “It’s just hard work from Coach Brog, Coach Richardson (Co-Defensive Coordinators), studying and being students of the game. The kids listening to what they’ve got going and understanding that they know, they’ve worked, and they’ve watched,” Leong said. “It’s just everyone coming together, at the end of the day, it’s a team effort. Every single person, 11 kids on the field were swarming to tackle, making plays, excited to be out there, with a great game plan. It makes it a great opportunity to hold people zero points when that happens.” One of those kids making plays was sophomore linebacker Noah Martin, who recorded several tackles for loss, thumping Cubs offensive players in the backfield. Martin also showed off on offense at running back as he had several big runs with lots of broken tackles and he had two runs that went for touchdowns as one went 46 yards, and the other went 24 yards. “He’s a great player. He’s a kid that makes you look better and makes your calls look good when they’re not. He’s just that type of kid,” Leong said. “I think we had a couple people tonight that had those types of performances. Noah did a great job tonight and it was fun to watch him do what he does, and I know he’s only going to get better. I’m just blessed to get to coach him and get to coach the rest of these kids.” Another one of the kids who Coach Leong is referencing is Bryson Golightly, who was mentioned before for his defense, but he also recorded a 30plus yard touchdown catch at wide receiver. That pass was from junior quarterback Ethan Salazar, who also had another touchdown on a quarterback sneak. There were too many standouts on offense to mention them all as they were crazy successful, rushing for 304 yards and passing for 90 yards, so shout to the Lobos Offensive Coordinator, Coach Winn. It wasn’t just the offense and defense that were clicking though, but also the special team’s unit. On arguably the play of the night, senior Kaden Brogden returned a punt over 50 yards for a touchdown, and he broke several tackles and tip-toed the sidelines on the play. All three phases showed out in front of an awesome crowd, but one thing Levelland can improve on is penalties. They had 100 yards worth of penalties, which Coach Leong addressed. “We’ve definitely got to do some things to clean it up. The refs definitely need to go watch film though. They tell us we’re too rough, it’s the game of football. They have a D1 coach that played in the NFL (Coach Winn), they’re going to be rough,” Leong said. “That’s what it takes. He’s passionate about it, teaches them that and they feed into that. That’s what he did if anybody wants to go watch his tape in college. We still have to go back and try to fix those things, but at the same time, it’s hard to tell the kids not to be too rough. We worked on it towards the third and fourth quarter, we told them not to pancake them but to help them up and we were able to get out of there with no penalties after that.” It seemed all but two personal foul penalties were for pancake blocks, which is comical because that’s a legal football play. Football is a contact sport and the Levelland coaching staff isn’t going to tell their kids to stop being aggressive to a degree that’s legal. But as far as pre-snap, holding and unnecessary personal foul penalties, the Lobos will look to clean those up heading into next week against the San Angelo Lakeview Chiefs. They travel on the road for the matchup this Friday at 7:00pm for a big test against a red-hot team. SA Lakeview is 4-0 this season and their offense is yet to score less than 42 points this season, so the Lobos will have their hands full. But if they can play to their capabilities, they should leave San Angelo with a winning record for the first time this season.