By Brooklyn Himmelberg
On Friday, September 6th, the Mustangs took to the road for their first away game against the Ansley-Litchfield Spartans. After trailing 8-6 at the break, the Mustangs outscored the Spartans 28-6, which head Coach Connor Brown attributes to the Mustangs’ conditioning. He commented, “Coach Bauer has done an outstanding job with our conditioning drills during practice, and it really showed. As coaches, we believe that being in top shape allows us to wear down teams that don’t have the same level of depth. This gives us a strong advantage, especially late in games when fatigue starts to set in for the other team.” Silver Lake’s offensive success was led by senior Lane Conway who finished the evening with 158 passing yards and 72 rushing yards. Conway had a rushing touchdown and completed three passes to junior Paxton Sorensen, junior Jaxon tenBensel, and senior Cody Plambeck, who all earned touchdowns as well. Leading the team in receiving yards, tenBensel’s touchdown came from a 50 yard play. Junior Lanham Skrdlant carried the ball the most for the Mustangs, with 11 carries and 43 yards. However, the Mustangs’ offense features many ball carriers and targets for Conway. Brown said, “Having multiple players who can contribute on offense really helps. It makes it harder for the defense to focus on just one guy, which gives us more options to attack. When everyone is involved, it keeps the defense guessing and opens up more chances for big plays. Our offense took a big step forward this week.” Defensively, senior Casey Conway tallied up 16 tackles and a sack. His brother added 12 tackles himself. tenBensel had two interceptions on the night and Sorensen recovered a fumble. The Mustangs will be on their home field for an afternoon game against the Stuart Broncos on Friday, September 13, and then they will take a week off to prepare for their matchup against Sterling on the 27th.