After a convincing 63 to 0 season opening victory, Blanco didn’t miss a beat this past week as they traveled to Luling and put on another solid performance in defeating the Eagles 42 to 8 for their second win of the season. The Panthers topped the 400 yard mark on the night, while the defense would keep the Eagles from scoring until late in the fourth quarter.

Senior Anthony Vela put the first points on the board for Blanco with a seven yard run to close out a five play, 74 yard drive to open the game for the Panthers. Kevin Gray followed with a nine yard run in the second quarter. Although Blanco would fail on both PAT’s, the Panthers were out to a 12 to 0 lead. It wouldn’t be until the closing seconds of the first half that the Panthers added to their lead when QB Derek Tesch found Layton Dworaczyk for a 24 yard TD pass as time expired. Tesch followed up on the 2 point conversion hitting Kevin Gray to give the Panthers a 20 to 0 lead at half time.

The second half began with a bang as Gray returned the kick-off 83 yards. Tesch again connected on the 2 point conversion pass, this time to Travis McClinton to extend the Panthers’ lead to 28 to 0. Blanco wasted little time in getting the ball back as Hunter Elrod would recover the ensuing kick-off, giving Blanco excellent field position. From there, Dworaczyk picked up his second TD of the night on a six yard run. Dal Dechert would add the PAT pushing the score to 35 to 0. Finally, as the game was drawing to a close, Corey Dowlearn added the final points to the Blanco score with a ten yard run, followed by another Dechert PAT. Although Luling finally found the end zone with 6:30 left in the game, it was too little too late as Blanco improved to 2 and 0 on the year.

Offensively, Hunter Elrod led the way with his second straight 100 yard game of the season, picking up 117 yards on 17 carries. Gray and Vela each added 50 yards, while Dworaczyk, Tesch, Dechert, and Dowlearn put the finishing touches on a team total of 315 rushing yards. Through the air, Tesch connected on seven of eight passes for 114 yards to five different receivers.

Defensively, Blanco continued to be impressive as they held Luling to just ten first downs, as well as scoreless for most of the game. In addition, Blanco forced the ball over on downs three times after the Eagles had first and goal. All three times that Blanco got the ball back, the Panthers put together scoring drives of 14 plays with 90 yards, 10 plays with 91 yards, and their final scoring drive of the game covered 91 yards in 15 plays, taking 8:45 off the clock.

The Panthers will now return home to take on the Florence Buffaloes, who enter the game at 1 and 1 on the season after losing to Crawford last week. The Buffs opened the season with a win over Bruceville-Eddy. Kick-off at Panther Stadium is set for 7:30p.m.