{"id":16087,"date":"2025-10-17T19:56:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T19:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creek-defense-keys-road-victory-in-dolores\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:53:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:53:31","slug":"dove-creek-defense-keys-road-victory-in-dolores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creek-defense-keys-road-victory-in-dolores\/","title":{"rendered":"Dove Creek defense keys road victory in Dolores"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dove
Dove Creek senior Nicholas Aragon runs around the left end in a against Escalante on Friday night at the Soper Sports Complex. Sam Green\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

DOLORES \u2013 Thursday\u2019s clash between Dolores and Dove Creek had postseason energy: two fringe top-16 teams, momentum swings, crisp October air and a nearly impossible comeback.<\/p>\n

Dove Creek led from the opening drive and leaned on its defense to hold off Dolores. When a final desperation pass fell incomplete, the Bulldogs celebrated a gritty 20-12 win.<\/p>\n

Trailing 20-6 with under two minutes left and no timeouts, Dolores (4-2, 1-2 Mountain League) nearly pulled off a miracle on Senior Night. Junior quarterback River Wickstrom connected with receivers, including a long catch-and-run to senior Deven Winter, to reach the Dove Creek 1-yard line. Wickstrom then hit junior Darren Hicks for a touchdown with 30 seconds left.<\/p>\n

Dolores recovered the onside kick at the Dove Creek 25-yard line, but the Bulldogs sacked Wickstrom and blanketed Winter in the end zone on the final play.<\/p>\n

Dove Creek (3-4, 1-2) struck first, driving the opening possession before senior tailback Nicholas Aragon scored from 10 yards out. After a defensive stop, junior quarterback Cael Beanland connected deep, setting up Aragon\u2019s second 10-yard touchdown for a 12-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Dolores answered with a 60-yard drive capped by Wickstrom\u2019s 8-yard strike to Winter. The Bears forced a punt, but Dove Creek\u2019s defense flipped momentum again. Senior Trevan Ivie sacked Wickstrom in the end zone for a safety and a 14-6 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrevan\u2019s been a force off the edge all year,\u201d said first-year head coach Brennan Banks. \u201cWhat really stood out tonight was his leadership \u2013 he was rallying his teammates, keeping everyone focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the free kick, Aragon completed his touchdown hat trick with just over a minute left in the half, sending Dove Creek into the locker room up 20-6.<\/p>\n

The second half was a defensive grind. Dolores reached the 2-yard line on its first drive, but freshman Kycen Gritz intercepted a fourth-down pass \u2013 one of four takeaways by the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

Even after Dove Creek was stopped on fourth-and-one from its own 20, the defense held. Senior Chad Kline recovered a fumble, one of several key stops that preserved the Bulldogs\u2019 14-point lead.<\/p>\n

Ivie\u2019s strip sack and recovery midway through the fourth quarter appeared to seal the win before Dolores\u2019 final rally fell short.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the way our guys didn\u2019t panic and stayed disciplined \u2013 they really came together as a team tonight,\u201d Banks said.<\/p>\n

Ivie, Kline and sophomore Konner Spigner combined for multiple sacks, making every dropback a challenge for Dolores.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to attribute our defensive success to our defensive coordinator Adam Warren and our other coaches \u2013 they\u2019re great football minds,\u201d Banks added. \u201cOne of the things Warren preaches is that \u2018we want six men to the ball\u2019 on every play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dove Creek hosts Sargent on Senior Night (Oct. 24) with playoff hopes alive. Dolores faces two top-10 teams to close the season, starting with a trip to Sanford on Friday, Oct. 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe told our kids the season is one game at a time from here on out,\u201d Banks said. \u201cThe seniors know what it takes to get there, and they responded tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ivie, Kline, and sophomore Konner Spigner had plenty of \u201cmeet me at the quarterback\u201d combined sacks, making every quarterback drop back into an adventure for the DHS offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to attribute our defensive success to our defensive coordinator Adam Warren and our other coaches \u2013 they\u2019re great football minds,\u201d added Banks, \u201cand one of the things that Warren preaches is that \u2018we want six men to the ball\u2019 on every play.\u201d<\/p>\n

A win ahead of their Senior Night home finale next week against Sargent (Oct. 24) keeps the \u2018Dogs squarely in the postseason conversation, while Dolores gets set for a pair of top 10 opponents in the final two weeks of the season, beginning with a visit to Sanford on Friday, Oct. 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe told our kids that the season is one game at a time from here on out,\u201d said Banks of the team\u2019s difficult path to another postseason berth, \u201cthe seniors know what it takes to get there, and they responded tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vaunted pass rush keeps Dove Creek\u2019s postseason hopes alive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16087","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=16087"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20008,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16087\/revisions\/20008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16087"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}