The West Lincoln Bears (3-5) defeated region 7-2A opponent Enterprise (0-7) by a final score of 40-22 Friday night.

With emotions running high — as the refs warned player after player to cool it — both teams had their running game clicking. The Bears’ ground game made a few extra plays to secure their first region 7-2A win.

“We played strong and we played fast,” said West Lincoln senior Cam Buckles said. “We plan on doing this every day. We made our tackles and made our blocks and we plan on keep on doing that”

“I thought we did really good,” said West Lincoln senior Jared Mathis. “Enrico Price and Michael Brothern were our rocks. I give credit to everyone, everyone did really good.”

Winning the coin toss, West Lincoln elected to receive the ball to start the contest. Starting from the 45-yard line, the Bears soon found the end zone as the Bears went to the air for a 45-yard touchdown by  Price. West Lincoln would miss the point after to take an early 6-0 lead.

Going with their ground attack, Enterprise was able to march down the field to tie up the game as Jordan Stevens found the end zone.

The Bears turned to their ground game for their second touchdown of the quarter as Michael Brothern ran the ball in from the 15-yard line. West Lincoln would make the point after to take a 13-6 lead.

The Bears would get another score after Enterprise had to punt the ball away as, with help from personal foul penalty, Price would run for a 25-yard touchdown. Missing the point after, the Bears were up 20-6.

Enterprise, facing a fourth down, would get their second touchdown of the game as Matthew Burns passed the ball to Jalon Grinstead who would end up hitting Dustin Prather down the field for a 40-yard touchdown. The Yellow Jackets went for the two-point conversion to bring the score to 20-14 in favor of West Lincoln.

With under two and half minutes left before halftime, West Lincoln found the end zone once more as Brothern punched in a five-yard touchdown. The Bears led 26-14 going into halftime.

Three minutes into the second half, West Lincoln would score once again on a four-yard rush, and after forcing a Yellow Jackets punt. This time they scored on a 49-yard touchdown pass by Ashtin Auttonberry to Chris Freeman.

Both teams’ defenses did their job as no touchdowns were scored until just under two minutes left in the game, as Enterprise would score the game’s last touchdown on a 12-yard run and converted the two-point conversion.

“Enterprise does so good on the inside trap so we wanted to take that away,” said Bears coach BJ Smithhart. “I thought we did good on that. I thought the kids played really good.”

“I’m proud of the kids’ effort,” said Enterprise coach Brooks Burns. “They played hard and I appreciate our fans coming out and supporting us. Now we got to get ready for a tough game next week.”

West Lincoln will have a bye this week and Enterprise heads to Loyd Star on Friday.

Story by Dave Linton