By Adam Beadle
Multimedia Staff
Nothing was going right for the Thunderbird Titans Thursday night with Yuma Catholic in town.
They simply couldn't click in any facet of the game, leaving the door open for the Shamrocks to dominate and avoid back-to-back losses to Valley teams for the first time since 2019 in the form of a 45-14 win.
“Going into this we just felt we needed to get them in deep water,” head coach Rhett Stallworth said. “We thought they’re a great football program, they got a lot of talent, they’ve got a great coach. We just thought the people they were playing hadn’t quite pushed them, and we thought that this would be the first time that they get pushed.”
“We told our kids, ‘if you can push them and take them to deep water, let’s find out’ because we’ve been in deep water this year a few times.”
By electing to receive the opening kickoff, the Shamrocks had the chance to raise the water level early.
They didn’t.
Thunderbird forced the Shamrocks to punt on the offense’s first drive, but a 8-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Andrew Cohill to freshman wide receiver Darryl Little would be the peak of the Titans momentum in the game.
Despite going up against one of the top rushers in the 4A conference in senior running back Elijah Little, the Shamrocks defense had the Titans frazzled in the first half.
Time after time again, Sharock defensive lineman were in the backfield. Little found very little air to breath and the Yuma Catholic offense capitalized.
Junior quarterback Nash Ott and senior wide receiver Sir Stokes, who were essential to the teams 4A state championship run last season, connected for two touchdowns in the first half.
“They improvised a couple of times when the play was kind of broken, and they did the things we taught them to do on our scramble drills,” head coach Rhett Stallworth said. “So we saw a lot of our coaching and things that have gone on come to fruition today.”
178 yards and two touchdowns would be the total for Ott through the first half of the game with 101 of his passing yards from connecting with Stokes.
“When we’re on the same page, it’s just fun,” Ott said.
However, a small beacon of light would start to appear for Thunderbird in the third quarter.
The Titans offense finally clicked on their second offensive drive. Cohill connected with senior wide receiver Joseph Francis on a 46-yard pass to put the Titans in the red zone, and the younger Little would later make a touchdown grab in the end zone to cut the Shamrock lead to three scores.
But once again, Thunderbird shut down and suffered its first loss of the year.
With the win, Yuma Catholic improves, and Stallworth’s outlook on the season does as well.
“I think it, you know obviously, catapults us into that top four somewhere,” Stallworth said. “You know we’ll see how it goes. I mean, we’re all fighting for playoff berths, and we know the playoffs are going to happen, but we’re fighting for that home field advantage.”
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