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September 11, 2001 BY JIM THOMAS Piedra Vista 48, Cortez 28 FARMINGTON - The first game of the season, it was the defense that played well. In Saturday’s, Sept. 8, second game it was the offense that played well. This Friday, Sept. 14, the Panthers will certainly need both to play as rival Durango comes to town for a 7 p.m. kickoff in Panther Stadium. "Last week (in a 17-7 loss to Bloomfield) it was our defense that played very well and this game (a 48-28 loss to Piedra Vista at Hutchison Stadium in Farmington on Saturday), it was our offense that played well. I was proud of their effort. You can’t take anything away from Piedra Vista because it has another good team," MCHS head coach Karl McGee said following the game.
For a few minutes there, Montezuma-Cortez High School had its offense in high gear. The Panthers took the opening kickoff on its own 15-yard line and marched 85 yards to a touchdown. They held the ball for 13 plays and methodically reeled off good gains. Devin Sena carried for a nice 16-yard gain going straight up the middle from the 30 to the 46. Kevin Wayman, moving from his normal quarterback spot to halfback, carried several times, including a 16-yard gain on a pitch from the PV38 to the PV22. After working the ball down to the PV8, Wayman scored around the near side with 4:56 left in the first quarter. Colin Tansey’s point-afer attempt was blocked for a 6-0 lead. "That’s the way football is meant to be played. We had good ball control that series. We had several other good offensive series during the game," McGee added. Suddenly, the PV Panther defense - led by defensive back Charly Martin who intercepted three passes and had numerous tackles, stiffened and shut down the MCHS Panthers for most of the rest of first half. Meanwhile, the PV Panther offense, which had trouble moving the ball in its first two games, kicked into high gear. PV scored four first-half touchdowns that put Piedra Vista up by a 35-6 count before halftime. PV tied the game on its first series when it got the ball in good field position at its own 38 and marched down field and scored. Following the PAT, PV went ahead for good at 7-6 with 3:52 left in the first quarter. A pass interception on MCHS’s next series led to another PV TD. Eric Burnett swept to the far side and went 43 yards untouched to paydirt with 2:49 showing. The kick was good and PV led 14-6. An interception return by Adam Sanders put PV ahead 21-6 after another PAT by Craig Burgess with 1:23 left. In the second period, the Panthers couldn’t move the ball their first two series. PV scored again to go up 28-6 (an 18 yard TD reception from Joel Wood to Martin. and came back and scored again (Paul Martinez going 12 yards up the middle), following a short punt, to go ahead 35-6 with 6:29 left. MCHS scored again with another long drive, this time going 80 yards in 10 plays. Wayman, who moved back to quarterback, made three long passes and capped by a 21-yard lob to Mike Rivas with 38 seconds to go. The conversion failed. PV led 35-12. The MCHS Panther defense just could not stop the PV Panther option-based offense, which rolled up 386 yards on the ground, with most of it coming via the big play. PV had seven running plays of 25 yards or more, including cross country touchdown dashes by running backs Eric Barnett and Seth Marquez, who each contributed 100-yard games. Cortez contained the outside but allowed PV runners to go up the middle. Cortez had more than 200 yards both on the ground and through the air by game's end, but 86 of the rushing total came on 12 plays in the opening drive. Thirty-five more rushing attempts the rest of the way yielded 142 yards. The PV Panthers were in total charge by the end of the first half. Time and time again their defense forced Cortez into third-and-long situations. Marquez took an option pitch and got outside for a 69-yard scoring run in the third quarter while Barnett added a fourth quarter TD with a tackle-breaking 20-yard run up the middle. MCHS made another long drive in the third quarter, starting at its own 18 and got down into the Red Zone at the 13 but the drive fizzled there, turning the ball over on downs. Cortez added two scores in the fourth quarter, the first was a 29 pass from Wayman to Gabe Evans at the 7:16 mark and another score came when Richard Yake scored on a 10 yard reverse with 2:07. Colin Tansey booted both PATs. Marquez finished with 192 yards rushing while Barnett had 101. McGee reported the MCHS freshman team is doing well. The young Panthers beat Farmington 24-12 and defeated Shiprock 20-6 in the revamped Basin League. Against FHS, Ryan Mortensen intercepted a pass for a touchdown and Matt Knisley had two long TD runs of 50 and 60 yards. Rusty Twilley and Knisley each ran in conversions. Against the Chieftains, Ryan McDonald made a lot tackles and hurries. Knisley made two short TD plunges. Dove Creek 6, Bayfield 0 Dolores County defeated Bayfield on Saturday afternoon at Weber Park Field in Dove Creek. Although the Bulldog defense bent a little, it never broke. "I was proud of our defense," DCHS head coach Ken Soper said. "I thought going into the game that Bayfield might score two touchdowns but to hold them scoreless was great." Bru Meyer led the way with 20 tackles and Lyle Joe had 16 from their middle linebacker spots. Dallas Coker finished with 12 and Trent Daves 10. BHS drove down to the DCHS 1-foot line, a five-yard penalty put the ball back on the 5 where DCHS then drove 95 yards back down field. During the drive, Keith Pierce made several nice passes. One of those went for 34 yards to Darren Rutherford. Rutherford snagged a big one, good for 17 yards and touchdown with five seconds left in the half. The kick failed. That was all the scoring in the game. The Wolverines gained 225 yards rushing, mainly between the 20-yard lines. Matt Brown had 15 carries for 76 yards, while Tyler McLaughlin added 17 carried for 73 and Kyle Wolff carried the ball nine times for 53 yards. They were held to 12 yards passing. The Bulldogs passed for 153 yards BHS dropped to 0-2 on the season, while Dolores County improved to 2-0. The Bulldogs travel to Ignacio to face the pass-happy team this Friday night for a 7 kickoff. Dolores 54, Cortez JVs 20 Dolores coach Don Story knew he has a good football team but he was not sure how good. The Bears lost their first game of the season to two-time AA Intermountain League champ Pagosa Springs, which has another good team this year. "I just wasn’t sure. But after this game, I feel like we really do have a pretty good football team," Story said following his team’s lopsided win at DHS Field Friday night. Dolores drew first blood when Waylon Bennett intercepted a pass and raced back 70 yards untouched and Casey Garvin added the PAT. After Cortez went one, two, three and out, the Bears had the ball in good field position at their own 36. Quarterback Cullen Zion made a nice bootleg for a 29-yard pickup and moments later tossed to Brady Blackmer from 7 yards out for a TD at 4:47. Garvin put DHS up 14-0. The Bears went up 21-0 when Garvin made a reverse for 49 yards and he added the PAT. Their final score of the period came when Zion called his own number on the option and raced 36 yards to a TD with 51 seconds left. Garvin kicked the PAT for a 27-0 lead at the end of the quarter. After MCHS went one, two, three and out. Dolores marched 76 yards in eight plays. Zion passed to Bennett on a slant good for a long gain. Duston Russell made a reverse for 27 yards for a score with 8:15 left. Garvin connected again for a 34-0 score. The teams exchanged possessions without doing much. Garvin scored again on a 33-yard romp after he zigged and zagged with 45 seconds left. He hit the PAT for a 41-0 advantage. Story called off the Bears in the second half, playing his second and third string players. A big play came early in the third quarter when Sean Boone bolted 33 yards up the middle for a touchdown. Garvin’s boot was through the uprights. Dolores led 47-0 and the mercy rule (45-point differential) kicked in. Finally, the Panthers got on the scoreboard when quarterback Ronnie Johnson hit tall Kris Hooten, a transfer from Viriginia, for a 37-yard pass play. The pass attempt failed. The clock went back to running normally with Dolores leading 47-6. Cortez scored right away in the fourth quarter when Johnson passed to Kyle Archibeque from 9 yards out with 10:33 left. The run failed. The Bears answered right back. This time Kevin Fane, on a fourth- and-goal situation, ran the ball in with 7:42 on the clock. Garvin was true again. Dolores led 54-12. The final score of the game came when A.J. Hermann made a reverse good for 43 yards. Johnson passed to Hermann for the conversion. "I found out we’ve got pretty good depth," Story added. "I thought we executed well. The defense played very well. There really isn’t much I can yell at them for that they did poorly. They all played a good game. I’m very happy with our progress." Dolores visits Shiprock, their only win of the season last year, at 7 p.m. Friday. Sargent 21, Mancos 7 SARGENT — Jacob Tallent carried the ball 64 yards up the middle for a touchdown and Kevin Schlemmer kicked the point-after in the third quarter, but it wasn’t enough as always-tough Sargent defeated Mancos Saturday afternoon. Sargent scored on a 24-yard run and a 4-yard plunge in the first quarter and then scored again on a 43-yard pass play in the second for a 21-0 lead at the half. "We just didn’t come off the bus and assert ourselves. The kids just don’t understand you have got to come to play at the start of the game, especially against a championship-caliber team," first-year head coach Gordon Shepherd said. He reported the team made some mental mistakes, and were hurt by three costly penalties. One mishap, instead of a mistake, was a secondary back slipped on coverage and allowed a 43-yard pass play right at the end of the game which put the Blue Jays in a hole. Chance Pearson did most of the running, gaining 95 yards on 18 carries for the game. Mancos controlled the ball in the third period and dominated the entire half, according to Shepherd. "We played super in the second half. We held them to only four first downs in the second half. We absolutely shut them down. We beat them on the scoreboard in that half and we beat them everywhere else. They need to learn that they can step on the field and play with any team. This team can do that," he said. The Blue Jays, 1-1, will host Del Norte at 7 p.m. Friday at Mancos Field. |
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