ELLENSBURG — The Kingston Buccaneers football squad still is yearning for its first victory. The Colville Indians handed the Buccaneers (0-2) its second loss of the season, during a 40-6 rout of the Buccaneers Saturday in a non-league game in Ellensburg.

Due to Colville and Kingston High School being 373 miles apart, the schools decided to meet up at the Central Washington location for the contest.

Even so, it was a long ride home for KHS coach Dan Novick, who said Colville is one of the better 2A programs in the state.

“Colville is a perennial 2A powerhouse,” Novick said. “They are disciplined, well coached and liked to hit. They had a lot of players who were juniors and seniors who are experienced.”

Colville scored all 40 of its points during the first two quarters.

“They jumped on us early. It was kind of a mirror image of our first game,” Novick said. KHS gave up 24 points in first half against Union in its opener. “They were ahead 40-6 at the half.”

Kingston’s lone score of the game came off a beautiful 64-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Paul Bagala to freshman wide receiver Tucker Bowman late in the second quarter.

“We went into our two-minute offense and Paul made a nice throw deep down the right sideline. Tucker caught it at about the five and got into the end-zone,” Novick said. “It was a nice throw and a nice catch.”

Novick said his team must improve on the defensive side of the ball in order for the Buccaneers to have success.

“We need to improve defensively. We had several situations where we lost leverage defensively,” he said. “We have to work on our tackling… a lot of times we’re playing too high.”

Despite the tackling woes on the defensive side of the ball, the defense shutout Colville in the second half, not allowing the Indians to score in the final 24 minutes of play.

“We were much more aggressive in the second half,” he said. “The whole third quarter Colville had their No. 1 units out there, too. We didn’t quit. I was proud of our effort.”

Kingston will face the always tough Fife Trojans this Friday night. Novick said this will be the third game in a row his squad has faced a talented opponent.

“We didn’t schedule any cupcakes. I believe the first three teams on our schedule will be playoff teams,” he said. “This level of competition we’re facing is something that will pay off for us down the road. Fife is going to be another challenge and we’ll be prepared. It will be a good test for us before we hit our league schedule beginning with Sequim (Sept. 28).”