NEWTON — Every time the Otis-Bison High School football team scored a touchdown, the B&B Baileyville Falcons were there to answer with a score of their own.
The Cougars finished their season Saturday as the runner-up in the Eight-Man Division-II state championship, losing to B&B 50-34 at Fischer Field in Newton.
“Well, we just played a heckuva ball club over there,” Cougars head coach Travis Starr said. “They play hard. They just don’t give up.
“You’ve got to earn everything you got. We gave up too many dang big plays. I never thought in a million years we’d give up 50 (points), but I thought it would be a more defensive battle.
The Cougars seemed to have all of the momentum early, when Patrick Piper fell on a rare Falcons fumble, giving the Cougars the ball on their own 30-yard line.
However, Otis-Bison was forced to punt.
On the next play, the momentum swung fully in B&B Baileyville’s favor, when Mitch Engelken got to the outside of the Cougars defense and took the ball on a 55-yard ride to the end zone.
Otis-Bison responded with a 39-yard drive, highlighted by an 11-yard run by Patrick Piper and a 13-yard pass from Trevor Keller to Brandon Pechanec. The Cougars didn’t cross the goal line, though.
The drive was cut short when Eric Huerter picked off a pass from Keller inside the Falcons 5-yard line.
That Falcons did nothing with the turnover and after a punt, the Cougars went on the hunt again.
On the first play of the second quarter, Keller aired it out to Dylan Wissman for 27 yards to put the Cougars on the scoreboard. The touchdown was the first of four that the duo combined for.
“We’d run the option and then we’d fake the option,” Starr said of Wissman’s scoring plays. “We’d take a crack and throw right up the middle when they were coming on that run and we got them on the play-action a few times.
“(Wissman) made some good catches, but Trevor threw some good balls as well.”
The Falcons answered two drives later. Engelken started the Falcons’ scoring drive with a 27-yard sprint and Huerter finished it with 26- and 8-yard jaunts, the latter ending in six points.
B&B scored again on its next drive. Engelken rushed 50 yards to score again, giving the Falcons a 22-6 lead.
The Cougars cut into the lead with a 45-yard pass play from Keller to Wissman. The score cut the Falcons’ lead to 22-14 with only three minutes left in the half.
“Well, we’d been running the option all day and I am supposed to pitch it out when the defensive end comes up,” Keller said. “But he went out with Patrick so I just cut it up and cut back across field and it was there.”
B&B deflated any momentum the Cougars might have at halftime with a 4-yard score by Dylan Buessing, set up by a 46-yard connection from Huerter to Cody Heiman.
The Falcons took a 28-14 lead into halftime.
The Cougars came out of the locker room ready to play. Michael Hlavaty, who had played on defense only due to his ankle injury, began the drive with a 4-yard run, but limped off of the field.
“Mine,” Hlavaty responded when asked whose choice it was for him to play on offense. “I wanted to go in the whole game, and I told them I was ready. He put me in and my ankle gave out again, so I knew I couldn’t go in again.”
Keller finished the drive with a 30-yard cutback run for a score.
Again, the Cougars came within a touchdown of B&B. Again, the Falcons responded with a score of their own.
On the ensuing kickoff, Piper kicked the ball instead of the lead-footed Hlavaty. The ball sailed 10 yards short of the goal line and Matt Engelken fielded the kick for the Falcons. Matt Engelken handed the ball off to Mitch Engelken on the reverse and Mitch returned the ball 70 yards to score.
“We put (Hlavaty) in there once, to see how it would go.” Starr said, “It ended up hurting us in the end because he ended up getting hurt on that play, and we didn’t have him to kick for us.”
Otis-Bison didn’t let that shake them. After a fake punt failed for the Falcons, the Cougars amassed another scoring drive starting from their own 39.
Wissman caught his third TD on a play that seemed like it would end in an interception.
Keller threw a bullet to the left corner of the end zone where Jacob Crotinger was waiting. The Falcons’ safety came crashing in to intercept the pass, but Wissman swooped in to catch the pass and turn it into the end zone.
“(Wissman) just runs around and he’s just open,” Keller said. “I don’t know. I just saw him and lofted it. He did the rest.”
The Falcons restored its two-score cushion three plays later, when Heiman broke free down the right
 sideline for a 75-yard score.
B&B scored once more on a 3-yard rumble across the goal line, advancing the score to 50-28.
The Cougars mustered one more scoring drive, capped by a final connection between Keller and Wissman, this one for 46 yards.