{"id":110064,"date":"2015-08-24T21:27:22","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T03:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bam-bam-bam-go\/"},"modified":"2015-08-24T21:27:22","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T03:27:22","slug":"bam-bam-bam-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bam-bam-bam-go\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Bam, bam, bam, go\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Cordell
Cordell Ridings hands off to Coby Baer during practice for the Montezuma-Cortez High School Panthers.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Taking over a team that won its first playoff game since 1957 during last year\u2019s 8-3 season, new Montezuma-Cortez head coach Dave Wagner plans to keep moving forward.<\/p>\n

Three of the Panthers\u2019 2014 all-conference selections Randy Haley (RB), Jonathan Walck (QB) and Dante Dennison (OL) are gone to graduation. But after being named to the 2014 all-conference first-team, senior Victor Perez returns to anchor the offensive and defensive lines.<\/p>\n

While the line play was a point of attention after the team\u2019s scrimmage at Durango, the Panthers have been addressing the problem, and Wagner said both the offensive and defensive lines are improving.<\/p>\n

Joining Perez in the trenches will be junior Elijah Singer and senior Tyler Dykes. And with over 20 freshmen to work in, Wagner believes newcomer Sol Carver will see time at defensive end.<\/p>\n

Although the team is freshman-heavy, it also have a strong senior core. Quarterback Cordell Ridings and receivers Colton Reynolds, Ryan Gurney and Austin Bayles join Perez as some of the team\u2019s senior leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some strong seniors, and we have a handful of athletes,\u201d said Wagner. \u201cI\u2019m very excited about this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers will be under a new system, but one that will be fun to watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to run a no-huddle offense,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cJust bam, bam, bam, go. It\u2019s going to be exciting, fast football.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fast-paced offensive style will be balanced by a feisty defense directed by Wagner and defensive coordinator Keith Mikhail.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur defense is going to be aggressive,\u201d Wager said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to bring people all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers\u2019 season kicks off on Friday, Aug. 28 at Aspen High School.<\/p>\n

Wagner has lofty goals for the 2015 season, but he\u2019s also thinking big picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to build tradition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coaches bring up-tempo offense, aggressive defense to young team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110065,"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-110064","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\/110064","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=110064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110064"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=110064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}