{"id":16184,"date":"2025-10-11T20:56:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T20:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-leans-on-stingy-defense-to-fend-off-salida\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:55:07","slug":"montezuma-cortez-leans-on-stingy-defense-to-fend-off-salida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-leans-on-stingy-defense-to-fend-off-salida\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez leans on stingy defense to fend off Salida"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez senior Parker Conrad runs to the edge in a contest against Wellington at Panther Stadium on Sept. 14. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

SALIDA \u2013 Montezuma-Cortez head coach Tyler Worley and his Panthers knew the pathway back to the top of the IML would be fraught with potential pitfalls.<\/p>\n

Back-to-back matchups against winless opposition to begin the Intermountain League posed a risk, but the Panthers weathered a challenge to stay perfect in league play with a 23-13 win over Salida.<\/p>\n

M-CHS (4-2, 2-0 2A IML) scored first on a 24-yard run from senior Parker Conrad and never trailed against the Spartans (0-6, 0-2 2A IML), but fought through a four-quarter battle to secure the win.<\/p>\n

Tied 7-7 at the break, M-CHS took the lead early in the third quarter after a big kick return set up strong field position, and the Panthers capitalized. M-CHS marched 39 yards, capped by a one-yard run from junior quarterback Cody Case. The visitors then added a 27-yard field goal from senior Isaac Dozal late in the quarter to make it a nine-point advantage at 16-7.<\/p>\n

Senior linebacker Wyatt Oliver made life miserable for Salida quarterback Eli Schwarz, sacking the senior three times, and classmate Karston Ozment enjoyed a big night controlling the line of scrimmage to help the Panthers halt multiple deep drives by Salida in the second half.<\/p>\n

Conrad\u2019s 59-yard scamper midway through the fourth quarter seemingly iced the victory, highlighting the senior\u2019s 200-plus rushing yards. However, Salida struck back with a long pass less than a minute later to close within 23-13, but the Panthers stuffed the two-point conversion to keep it a two-possession game, then recovered the onside kick to seal the win.<\/p>\n

The Panthers\u2019 defensive line kept Salida behind the chains for much of the game, allowing M-CHS linebackers to fly to the ball and make tackles to prevent the Spartans from producing the upset.<\/p>\n

The road success extended M-CHS\u2019 winning streak over their Chaffee County league opponents to four straight victories, while keeping the Panthers in the hunt for their third playoff berth in four years. M-CHS entered the weekend ranked No. 19 in the 2A classification.<\/p>\n

The Panthers head into next week\u2019s battle for first place with Alamosa (4-2, 2-0 2A IML) as two of the league\u2019s three remaining 2-0 teams. Kickoff in the San Luis Valley is set for Friday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

offense, Conrad’s big day break halftime deadlock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[926,28,36,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-football","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184","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=16184"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20061,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184\/revisions\/20061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16184"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}