Manteca High went three-and-out on its first possession.

On its second, a first-down extended the drive to seven plays but the Buffaloes failed to convert on fourth down and turned the ball over to visiting Buhach Colony.

But while the Thunder failed to gain any traction outside of its first drive, Manteca got progressively better – finally scoring a touchdown with 3:33 left to play in the first half and capping off the second quarter with an impressive touchdown pass from slinger Dakarai Charles to Rolando Tijero.

And the train didn’t stop there.

By the time the final whistle blew at Guss Schmiedt Field on Friday night, the Buffaloes had built a 34-6 lead over Buhach to start the 2015 season off with a win.

Not even that margin was enough to erase a pair of stalled first-half drives and costly penalties in the eyes of Manteca head coach Eric Reis.

“I really hate the first game of the season for that reason – there are kinks that need to be worked out,” Reis said. “Normally when you look up at a score like that you have a lot of things to look positively at and we had some. But there are a lot of things that we need to work on before we come back out next week.”

Manteca did have its bright spots.

According to Reis, the defense – spurred on by outstanding play of the defensive line – held Buhach scoreless for the majority of the game and kept the Thunder below 100 total yards of offense until quarterback Andrew Morris started passing for chunks midway through the fourth quarter.

And while his stat line was padded by a 44-yard rush, running back Darrion Kitson managed to find the end zone twice and played a big role defensively from his position at linebacker.

“It’s the first game of the season and we made some mistakes out there but we came out in the second half ready to improve on things and I think we good job at doing that,” Kitson said. “As a team we’ve really come together – guys have been stepping up and right now it’s all about brotherhood out there. It’s all about playing for each other out there and that’s only going to get stronger as the season goes on.”

Kitson finished the game with 89 yards rushing on 10 carries with a pair of touchdowns. Quarterback Dakarai Charles finished with 8 completions on 13 attempts, including a 29-yard touchdown strike to Ronaldo Tijero.

Manteca will travel next week to North Monterey County – the second time under the tutelage of Reis that the Buffaloes will play a coastal team in a non-league matchup. The team will have a bye the week heading into the Valley Oak League season.