{"id":25451,"date":"2024-10-05T21:05:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-06T03:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-post-league-opening-victory-at-gunnison\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:17:33","slug":"panthers-post-league-opening-victory-at-gunnison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-post-league-opening-victory-at-gunnison\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers post league-opening victory at Gunnison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marley
Marley Linch (0) celebrates in the end zone after catching a long pass for a touchdown against Shiprock on Friday night (Sam Green\/Special to the Journal)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

GUNNISON \u2013 For fans of methodical, grinding drives full of three yards and a cloud of dust, Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s road victory over Gunnison may not have been its cup of tea.<\/p>\n

For the fourth time in five outings, the Panthers leaned on big plays to break the half-century mark, piling up a full season\u2019s worth of highlight reel plays en route to a 54-26 win on Friday to open Intermountain League play.<\/p>\n

It was also the Panthers\u2019 first victory over the Cowboys since 2017.<\/p>\n

Three touchdowns of 65 yards of longer in the opening minutes put the Panthers up 19-7 in the early stages of the second quarter. The Cowboys (0-5, 0-1) responded with a fumble recovery score and a churning drive to regain the lead at 20-19. However, the Panthers (4-1, 1-0) answered with two touchdowns in the final five minutes of the opening half, seizing the momentum with a 34-20 halftime lead.<\/p>\n

Senior quarterback Colby McMillian threw for four touchdowns, while classmate Tay Wheat scored three of the Panthers\u2019 five first-half touchdowns.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez leaned on its defense to produce a big stop late in the second quarter, as the scoring run extended to 22 unanswered points on Wheat\u2019s 7-yard run five minutes into the third quarter.<\/p>\n

With standout defensive end Aden Ray back from injury, the Panther defense stiffened in the second half, posting takeaways while not allowing a single point to the Cowboy offense after a Gunnison kickoff return closed the gap to 41-26.<\/p>\n

McMillian\u2019s 16-yard scamper in the first minute of the fourth quarter put the Panthers in firm control.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez will play in its Homecoming contest at 7 p.m. Oct. 11 against Salida.<\/p>\n

Dolores falls short on road<\/div>\n

The Bears spent the majority of Friday\u2019s game at Sargent playing from for behind, falling 30-23.<\/p>\n

Dolores (2-4, 0-2 in Mountain League play) will have a bye week before traveling to Dove Creek for an Oct. 18 meeting at the Soper Sports Complex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Explosive plays ignite Montezuma-Cortez to 4-1 record<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1870,36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-high-school-football","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25451","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=25451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78943,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25451\/revisions\/78943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25451"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}