By Mason Byers
Staff Writer
Campo Verde's flag football team needed to get a win against Casa Grande in order to get its season back on track.
Casa Grande came into the game 1-1 with a solid start to its season, while Campo Verde sat at 1-2 with the two losses coming to top 6A conference teams.
Campo Verde had a brutal start to its season with games against Highland and Hamilton in which it lost both. However, head coach Brian Coger knew the start of their campaign would be tough.
“We knew last week was gonna be some tough matchups,” Brian said. “Our goal is to be battle-tested upfront so that way we are ready for a playoff run.”
The Coyotes were able to get back in the win column Tuesday night, 20-7, which was fueled by a great second-half performance from the overall team.
The beginning of the first half was a defensive slugfest, both teams caused pressure and turnovers which made it hard for either offense to get a good momentum going. Campo Verde’s own freshman Amaya Hernandez was able to get two sacks in the second quarter that helped propel their defense.
Towards the end of the first half, there were three interceptions. Senior Maddie Coger was able to snag the first one for the Coyotes. Then just a couple of plays after that, sophomore for the Cougars Kayla Tacker responded with one of her own. Then the very next play the Coyotes freshman defensive back Ella Mutters gets her own interception. A very eventful two minutes in the second quarter.
When the Coyotes got the second interception late in the second quarter, they made sure to put some points up on the board right after it. Junior quarterback for Campo Verde, Izzy Pap, connected with Maddie on a 9-yard touchdown to give the Coyotes a 7-0 lead heading into halftime.
Brian knew that his offense had been playing well, but they needed to have some points to show for it.
“We were moving the ball, we were just making mistakes once we got towards the red zone,” Brian said. “We just had to punch it in.”
Once the second half started Campo Verde never looked back. The very first drive the Coyotes had was an 80-yard touchdown pass to freshman Oakley Dobratz-Blevins which extended their lead to 14-0.
Pap and the rest of the team were able to make the right adjustments in the second half, and she made sure to encourage her teammates.
“Telling people to be confident in their hands,” Pap said. “Be confident in your ability to catch the ball and run.”
Again both teams went into a scoring drought for the rest of the third quarter. However entering the fourth quarter Casa Grande was still showing some fight in them, as once again the star that is Tacker got her second interception of the night with 5:47 to play in the game.
The Cougars were not able to get anything out of the turnover though and were forced to punt it right back to the Coyotes. A large punt return by Maddie set up Campo Verde deep into Casa Grande territory. Then the very next play senior Rhiana Gurnani scampered her way into the endzone for a 9-yard touchdown. The Coyotes then led 20-0 with very little time remaining in the game.
Casa Grande fought to the very end though as sophomore quarterback connected with sophomore wide receiver Lynisee Armstrong for a 60-yard touchdown with 2:56 to play in the game.
However, it was too little too late for the Cougars as time just was not on their side as the Coyotes were able to run out the clock the next drive and seal the victory.
Maddie was just happy to get back to .500 again and hoped this was the bounce-back game they needed to go on another deep run.
“Our two losses were just from our mistakes, I think we’ll be fine,” Maddie said. “I think we have a chance of winning state again.”
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