The Newcomb Skyhawks were introduced to Dolores freshman Forrest Pejsa on Friday.<\/p>\n
And early in the third quarter, Newcomb defensive back Nicholas Tsipai was individually greeted by the first year linebacker during a punt return.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s most likely a meeting he\u2019d rather forget.<\/p>\n
As the Skyhawks punted from their own 37-yard line, Tsipai was the first Newcomb player off the line.<\/p>\n
He tore downfield in pursuit of Dolores returnman Tristen Medina, who had taken Newcomb\u2019s previous punt 51 yards for a score.<\/p>\n
But as soon as Tsipai crossed midfield, he was obliterated by Pejsa, who put the 145-pound player on his back in a hurry.<\/p>\n
It was one of the many plays on the evening during which Pejsa dominated, on his way to a team-high 16 tackles, including six tackles for losses.<\/p>\n
Pejsa and the Dolores defense hounded Newcomb relentlessly.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Tylin Yarbrough swam, ripped and bulldozed through Newcomb\u2019s offensive line to blow up plays and pressure the quarterback, finishing with six tackles.<\/p>\n
And sophomore Talon Zwicker patrolled the field from his linebacker position, recording 10 tackles.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur defensive line was attacking pretty good,\u201d said head coach Chris Trusler. \u201cAnd then our linebackers, on blitzes, were making tackles in the backfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bears blanked the Skyhawks defensively, and offensively, they did as they pleased.<\/p>\n
Tristen Medina showed out with his second consecutive game with three touchdowns \u2013 one rushing, one receiving and one on a punt return \u2013 and quarterback Jalen Balderrama threw more passes than he had all season.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst Newcomb, we wanted to show other teams, and ourselves, that we\u2019re able to pass the ball,\u201d Trusler said. \u201cAnd we did a good job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balderrama was 16-26 for 169 yards and two touchdowns, one on a two-yard pass to Josh Corbitt and the other an 11-yard strike to Medina.<\/p>\n
The Dolores backfield split carries again, as it has since running back Branden Donaldson went down with a broken collarbone in week one.<\/p>\n
Balderrama rushed for 49 yards and a touchdown, Josh McCoy ran for 24 yards, Gage Reynolds had four carries for 14 yards, Zwicker ran for 38 yards and a score, and Medina had two carries and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
But Trusler expects the backfield by committee to change against Salida on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week we\u2019re going to settle on one guy to lead the charge at halfback,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the other guys will sub in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trusler plans for senior Josh McCoy to get the bulk of the carries against Salida.<\/p>\n
McCoy has 145 yards rushing on the season, but he\u2019s averaging a whopping 9.1 yards-per-carry.<\/p>\n
He may have himself a heyday on Friday against a Salida defense that has allowed over 500 yards rushing in the last two weeks combined.<\/p>\n
The Bears (2-1) and Spartans (1-2) will kickoff at 7 p.m. Friday at Salida High School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
up 16 tackles; Medina scores 3 touchdowns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[44,188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109325","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=109325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109325"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}