Nederland entered Friday night’s District 22-4A showdown with Dayton at Bulldog Stadium with thoughts of a district championship and securing one of the three playoff spots up for grabs.

The last thing the Bulldogs could have possibly imagined was suffering the second-worst loss in school history. But that’s exactly what a stunned Senior Night crowd witnessed, as the Broncos rolled to a 63-0 victory.

The only more one-sided loss in Nederland history was in its first-ever varsity game in 1925. Orange High School pounded the Bulldogs 127-0 in that one.

“I think Coach Neumann’s goal going into next year will be to try to play a complete season without someone scoring 60 or more points against us,” said Neumann referring to last year’s 63-24 loss to Central, which was Nederland’s previous worst loss during the Neumann era. “That’s two years in row that we’ve given up over 60 points in a game. I’ll look hard in the mirror at that.

“After saying that, let me clearly state the obvious. We were beaten by a far superior football team tonight. In about every facet of the game they were far superior to us. It had more to do with how well they played, their abilities and the job their coaching staff did more than the inadequacies in our effort tonight by far.

“The credit goes to Dayton. Tonight, they were the finest team we played all year. That’s no disrespect to the people we’ve played this year. But, that’s all we can speak for is the night we play people.”

Dayton won the coin toss and deferred possession to the second half. That was the first of many good decisions for the Broncos.

Nederland’s Kirby Bellow hit Asa Cardenas for a 9-yard completion on the Bulldogs first play from scrimmage. But it was all downhill from there for the Bulldogs.

After forcing a punt, Dayton scored on its first possession with tailback John Gable doing most of the damage. He carried four times for 30 yards on the drive. Quarterback Gregory Charles hit Ronnie Powell on a pair of 14-yard completions and Charles capped the drive with a 1-yard quarterback sneak.

The Broncos defense forced two straight three-and-outs. Meanwhile, the Dayton offense scored on its next two possessions. Charles hit Powell for a 6-yard touchdown on fourth-and-goal. Charles hit A.J. Dugat on a 22-yard scoring strike that made the score 21-0.

After a rare punt, Dayton’s offense closed out the first-half scoring on another 1-yard sneak by Charles with 34 seconds left to give the Broncos a 28-0 halftime lead.

“We got things going our way,” said Dayton coach Jerry Stewart. “Nederland’s got a good ball club. The quarterback (Bellow) is a good young man, we just gave him some different looks that he wasn’t ready for. He’s going to be a good one down the road.

“We’ve got a pretty good defense, we’re just not very big. People have forgotten that we play pretty good defense. Up to this point, we’ve played a bad 14 seconds (in district) at Lumberton and who knows we might get to play them again. We’re not too bad. Everybody’s forgotten about us a little bit. We’ve been flying under the radar.

“Our biggest concern was stopping them on offense. But we’re not too shabby on offense either. We thought we could move the ball on them inside. I have high regards for Nederland’s program. We’ve had some donnybrooks where I’ve been waving the white flag many times. They’ve got good kids and they’ll be fine.”

Dayton took the second-half kickoff and needed just three plays to score. In fact, the Broncos doubled their halftime point total in the third quarter. Charles connected with Dugat on a 46-yard scoring strike to open the third-quarter scoring.

On the Bulldogs first play of the third quarter, Bellow hit Cardenas for an 11-yard completion, but Cardenas fumbled on the play, which was recovered by Dayton’s Dylan Bethea.

Gable scored three plays later on a 27-yard scamper to make the score 42-0. Charles hit Jeffrey Summers on consecutive completions of 33 and 4 yards, the latter of which went for a touchdown. The Broncos closed out the third quarter scoring on a 53-yard scoring pass from Charles to Dugat.

That was Charles’ fourth touchdown pass of the game. He completed 19-of-23 passes for 290 yards. Dugat caught passes for 163 yards and three touchdowns. Gable rushed for a season-high 164 yards on 16 carries.

Summers closed out the scoring for Dayton early in the fourth quarter on a 53-yard touchdown run straight up the middle of the field to make the score 63-0. The Broncos have outscored the Bulldogs 98-7 in the last two meetings between the two schools, claiming a 35-7 win in Dayton last year.

Dayton had 22 first downs to the Bulldogs four and out gained Nederland 559 to 42.

“We’ll regroup. We have another game left and it’s a big game,” said Neumann referring to next week’s game at Lumberton which will decide the district’s third and final playoff spot. “I’m proud of our football team and the season we’ve had.

“It was a tough loss, but I told our kids to shake it off as soon as possible and don’t let it linger. I think our players will be very motivated to play next week.”