Early turnovers crippling in 23-18 loss
Keyon Alston didn’t want the moment to slip through his fingers.
So he made sure he had, at the least, his helmet behind them.
Alertly helping out senior quarterback Zane Pontine, scrambling first to his right then back to his left under heavy Bayfield pressure, by re-routing himself into open space once Pontine became visible, Ignacio’s receiver made the split-second decision to leave his feet to catch Pontine’s on-the-move pass, rather than simply extend his arms overhead.
Seeing the football all the way, Alston not only caught the nine-yard throw, but did so in the end zone for a revitalizing touchdown (Pontine’s two-point conversion plunge was unsuccessful) with 4:54 left in the third quarter of a Pine River Rivalry battle Friday night, Sept. 19, becoming more and more dramatic.
“The adrenalin really got me – I thought I was going to drop that ball!” Alston recalled afterwards. “But I knew everyone was watching me, so the moment was big; I had to catch it. Seeing that ball – it was my first (TD) – was crazy, man. I mean, I really feel like that got us back in the game; after that, everyone was crazy hyped-up and ready to go.”
“Unfavorable plays are going to happen, but we’ve just got to come back and make big plays like that,” head coach Jake Nossaman said. “Just changes everything when we’re riding momentum, so that was a super-big play and super-great catch from a freshman.”
Capping a five-play, 69-yard drive (81 after two early penalties) which also included a 71-yard Pontine completion to tackle-breaking senior running back Lincoln deKay, setting the Bobcats up at the Wolverines’ 9, Alston’s clutch catch brought IHS back to 23-12. After junior William Mendoza-Lechuga’s kickoff went out of bounds, giving the guests the ball at their own 35, four consecutive passes by BHS junior quarterback Cole McWhirter gained just five yards and elated Ignacio went back on offense at the enemy’s 40 with 3:27 remaining.
Bayfield, however, allowed zero yards in forcing a three-and-out, and after Mendoza-Lechuga angled his punt out of bounds at BHS’ 25, the Wolverines intensified, but even more so simplified their attack. Meaning that out of their final 18 snaps, McWhirter – who’d started the game off heaving a 40-yard TD, only 13 seconds into the first quarter, over IHS senior Aven Bourriague and into senior Estevan Gonzales’ hands – went aerial only once.
Two plays were Ayden Casillas punts, with the latter – immediately following McWhirter’s incomplete throw off the fingers of intended receiver James Sandoval – netting 26 yards after IHS senior D.J. Hendren returned it six yards to the Bobcat 30 with 1:38 left in the fourth quarter.
By that time, Ignacio had hacked Bayfield’s lead down to 23-18 after an eight-yard Pontine keeper capped a 70-yard drive – nearly deadened by Wolverine junior Kole Domingos’ nine-yard sack of Pontine, but resuscitated by Bourriague’s fully-outstretched 36-yard grab reaching BHS’ 8. Pontine’s two-point pass attempt went incomplete, and Sandoval then smothered IHS’ onside kick. But after forcing an unlikely three-and-out and Hendren then returning Casillas’ punt, the ’Cats had one last chance.
Working with zero timeouts left, Pontine first rushed for five yards but then missed Alston long. A shorter completion to Bourriague advanced Ignacio to the 40 but not far enough to earn a new set of downs – IHS’ coaches certainly felt the ’Cats had – and Domingos then sacked a scrambling Pontine (13 completions, 226 yards passing) for a 15-yard loss.
“Clutch scenario, you know? You’ve got to get the quarterback when you can,” said Domingos. “I’d really been fighting their tackle all night; he and I had a great battle, and they also moved a running back over to help stop me, but it didn’t work.”
“Ignacio played great this game, and obviously we had, like, a scare towards the end; I was just really trying to get back there and make sure they couldn’t get that last deep ball off.”
McWhirter then knelt the ball once in ‘victory formation,’ capping a five-point road win and a second conquest this season in which the Wolverines (3-0 overall, 0-0 2A Intermountain) put up all their points in the first half.
“The hype was real out here, our fans were cheering us on and it feels great to win against a rival,” said senior Jack Waters, whose recovery of a failed Pontine option pitch to deKay with 1:35 left in the second quarter set BHS up at IHS’ 10, and led to Gonzales’ four-yard TD carry three plays later. Casillas’ point-after kick was good, increasing Bayfield’s lead to 23-6 with 33.6 ticks left.
The Wolverines’ previous score was also the end product of a takeaway – an interception by sophomore Maxus ‘Max’ Johnston on the 12th play of a Bobcat march which began at IHS’ 45, reached BHS’ 12 and consumed 6:41 of the second quarter. Back on offense at their own 27 after a penalty against Ignacio, the Wolverines gained three yards on two Gonzales carries. McWhirter then launched a perfect sideline bomb to Sandoval, who caught it and outran all pursuers for a 70-yard score – and 16-6 lead – with 1:50 left.
“The offensive line…I give all my credit to them, genuinely, because they’re the only reason I threw that ball, right?” said McWhirter (7-of-11 passing 122 yards). “Coach really just put a lot of faith in me to throw the ball – and knows we can throw the ball well with our offensive line this year – so he just gave me the opportunity to put one out there and I told him I would.”
McWhirter’s two-point tote was wiped out by an apparent double infraction against Bayfield, and Casillas was then summoned to try a 50-yard PAT. It fell short, but his school-record 47-yard field goal, putting BHS up 10-0 with 7:14 left in the first quarter, was the reason the kick was even considered.
And head coach Jason Wenzlau was fortunate to even have the choice; the Wolverines couldn’t have asked for a better start to such a clash. Gonzales (6-23 rushing, 2-43 receiving) returned Mendoza-Lechuga’s opening kickoff 25 yards, and BHS gained another 15 yards at play’s end via a face-mask penalty against the ’Cats. Wasting no time, McWhirter immediately went aerial and lobbed a 40-yard TD over Bourriague into Gonzales’ hands, putting BHS up 7-0 (after Casillas’ PAT) only 13 seconds in.
“If I wouldn’t have fumbled it or threw an interception then the game might have been different,” Pontine said. “But I like how our defense really just stepped up in the second half; in the first half we were just kind of letting stuff go.”
Filling injured senior Gabe Archuleta’s cleats as Pontine’s No. 1 target, Bourriague finished with five catches for 62 yards. Junior Shaun Sanderson caught two passes for 45 yards, Hendren two for 28, Alston two for 17 and Mendoza-Lechuga one for three. deKay ended up with 71 yards receiving on his one grab, and also rushed for 57 yards on 13 carries – one being a nine-yard TD around left tackle with 0:16 left in the first quarter, completing a 15-play, 70-yard drive devouring 6:50 worth of clock.
Pontine then hit Hendren with the conversion pass, but Hendren was stopped short and the score stood Bayfield 10, Ignacio 6.
AFTERMATH:
After a well-timed second ‘bye’ week – in the wake of the loss to Bayfield – this fall, the Bobcats (0-4 overall, 0-0 1A South Central) will return to action Saturday, Oct. 4, and begin SCC play against Centauri. Kickoff at IHS Field that afternoon is set for 1 p.m.
“If we had all of our players I think we’d be sitting a lot better right now. But injuries happen; you can’t do much about them,” Pontine said. “I hope all of us get better and hopefully Lincoln’s ankle is doing good; it’s going to be a little rough if it’s not.”
“We’ve been doing better from the past three games, honestly,” he continued. “And this game really just showed me that we can actually do it, but we’ve just got to start in the first half.”
“We’ve had some injuries that’ve been getting us – we’ve been battling adversity all year long – but I’m super proud of the boys,” Nossaman said. “That’s football, they kept fighting and we had some younger guys step up. It’s a long season and we’ve got to keep grinding.”
“He praised the effort,” Alston said. “We were getting down on ourselves a little at halftime, but he really brightened the mood, giving us a nice speech in the locker room. It was a tough game, but my confidence is, like, off the charts right now.”
Having booked an eye-opening 43-13 win at BHS on Friday, September 26, the vaunted Falcons (0-0 SCC) will arrive standing 3-1 overall as well as 2-0 away from their Conejos County nest.