<\/p>\n
It was 28-0 in a hurry.<\/p>\n
Hosting the Miyamura Patriots on Friday, the Montezuma-Cortez Panthers were out-scored 21-0 in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Patriots running back Alias Starkovich was responsible for three of Miyamura\u2019s first four touchdowns, one coming on a 14-yard catch and the others on rushes of 64 yards and 13 yards.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t that the Panthers were surprised by Miyamura\u2019s plays, said defensive coordinator Keith Mikhail.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir offense just executed better than our defense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Down 31-0 at half, Mikhail said the Panthers\u2019 goal was to win the second half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just never gave up,\u201d he said of the young M-CHS squad.<\/p>\n
M-CHS kicked off to start the third quarter, and the Patriots strung together a drive on the ground, ending with a 30-yard touchdown run by Nolan Menapace.<\/p>\n
But neither team scored again in the third.<\/p>\n
The two traded possessions, with Cordell Ridings recovering a Miyamura fumble, then the Panthers going three-and-out and punting, followed by the Patriots punting it back.<\/p>\n
The Panthers finally got on the board in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
After recovering a Miyamura fumble, M-CHS put together a drive that included a big run by Colton Reynolds down to the 10-yard line, and was capped off by a Ridings touchdown pass to junior Josh Ramos.<\/p>\n
The Panthers quickly struck again, when junior Tanner Desrosiers scooped up a Miyamura fumble on the next possession and returned it 70 yards for a touchdown, bringing the score to 38-13.<\/p>\n
Miyamura would score once more to bring the score to 45-13, and with M-CHS unable to find the end zone in its final possession, the game ended 45-13.<\/p>\n
While the Panthers were greatly outplayed in the first half, Mikhail spoke of their goal to win the second.<\/p>\n
And although Miyamura brought in substitutions late in the game, the Panthers\u2019 second-half play showed improvement, scoring 13 points and holding Miyamura to 14.<\/p>\n
Head coach Scott Conklin and the Panthers are blessed with a bye this week, which will allow banged-up members of the team extra time to rest.<\/p>\n
It will also give the team an extra week to prepare for Grand Junction Central (1-0), before their meeting in Grand Junction, Friday, Sept. 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
young, banged-up M-CHS, bye week comes at a good time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109736","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=109736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109736"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}