{"id":108814,"date":"2015-10-15T21:53:36","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T03:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blue-jays-back-after-week-off\/"},"modified":"2015-10-15T21:53:36","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T03:53:36","slug":"blue-jays-back-after-week-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blue-jays-back-after-week-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays back after week off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Mancos Blue Jays practice in preparation for their upcoming game against Sierra Grande.<\/span>Jardyn Angell\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After they were given a forfeit win over Shiprock Northwest last week, the Mancos Blue Jays (4-2) jump back into Mountain conference play against Sierra Grande (1-5) on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Although Mancos would have rather played last week, the extra week off was beneficial.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re better,\u201d co-head coach Bill Parsons said on Monday. \u201cSome guys that were hurt are getting well. And also, it\u2019s allowing us to refine some of the things we knew we needed to work on and maybe put in a couple new things.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Oct. 2 against Sargent, the Blue Jays gave up 341 rushing yards. But in preparing for Sierra Grande, they\u2019re more concerned with the Panthers passing game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got a good quarterback that can throw and they\u2019ve got two ends that can really catch it,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen from them, they throw the majority of the time. So we\u2019ve got to be ready for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the responsibility will fall on defensive backs Adrian Hernandez and Kaleb Hargraves, who each have two interceptions on the season.<\/p>\n

Offensively, the Blue Jays will look to rediscover their rhythm.<\/p>\n

After racking up 444 rushing yards against Sanford, they were held to just 160 total yards in the 68-12 loss to Sargent.<\/p>\n

Look for Mancos to lean on running backs Axel Bonde and Everett Strazza-Whalen, and for quarterback Drew Morgan to make plays with his legs as well.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t be surprised if they open it up and allow Morgan to throw to Bowen Strazza-Whalen or Andrew Plunkett, as Plunkett had 56-yards receiving and a touchdown in the Blue Jays\u2019 last contest.<\/p>\n

Mancos is third in the Mountain league with a 2-1 conference record and three league games remaining against Sierra Grande, Sangre de Cristo and Dove Creek.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got three tough games left, and we want to win all three of them,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cOf course, so does everybody else we\u2019re playing. But it\u2019s tight this year, this is a good league.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing conference play<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108814"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}