{"id":31262,"date":"2023-10-07T20:44:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T02:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-ground-game-dominates-bayfield\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:37:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:37:41","slug":"panthers-ground-game-dominates-bayfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-ground-game-dominates-bayfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers ground game dominates Bayfield"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Tay
Tay Wheat of Montezuma-Cortez runs for a gain Friday, Oct. 6 against visiting Bayfield.Charles Cook\/Special to The Journal<\/span>Charles Cook\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

CORTEZ \u2013 With its home stadium packed with Panthers, both current and alums, the M-CHS football team wanted to unveil their new look.<\/p>\n

As the kids say, this Panther team has some serious drip.<\/p>\n

\"Panthers
Panthers running back Tay Wheat breaks free against Bayfield Friday, Oct. 6, in Cortez.<\/span>Charles Cook\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tay
Tay Wheat of Montezuma-Cortez tries to break free from Donovan Candelaria of Bayfield Friday, Oct. 6 in Panther Stadium.<\/span>Charles Cook\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Quarterback
Quarterback Colby McMillan runs out of the pocket against Bayfield in Cortez on Friday, Oct. 6.<\/span>Charles Cook\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tay
Tay Wheat breaks away from the Bayfield defense for a score Friday, Oct. 6 in Cortez.<\/span>Charles Cook\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A completely revamped offense electrified the Homecoming fans with a barrage of explosive runs, with the Panther O-line having their way in a 51-24 victory over Bayfield.<\/p>\n

Junior Tay Wheat broke the school record with seven rushing touchdowns, including five from over 25 yards out, to help the Panthers to their third straight win.<\/p>\n

The defense, meanwhile, limited the potent Wolverine offense to a single score in the second half as the Panthers topped Bayfield for a second straight year, and kept their postseason aspirations alive.<\/p>\n

M-CHS jumped out to a two-score lead right out of the gate, with Wheat striking from 26 and 52 yards to give the Panthers a 13-0 advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve adjusted the offense to fit the personnel that we have,\u201d said fourth-year head coach Ivan Mack of his team\u2019s focus on power football, \u201cand it\u2019s really allowed us to emphasize our strengths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayfield (0-6, 0-1 2A IML) climbed back into the game with two long scores of their own from senior Donovan Candelaria. His second of his three touchdowns \u2013 a 26-yard sprint early in the second quarter \u2013 closed the gap to 19-12.<\/p>\n

M-CHS and Bayfield traded Wheat and Candelaria scores to head into the locker room in the midst of a shootout, with the Panthers in front 27-18.<\/p>\n

From there, M-CHS (4-3, 2-0 2A IML) took command of the game, stymying the Wolverine offense and leaning on their own dominance at the point of attack \u2013 including a huge day for a senior-laden Panther front five \u2013 to spring Wheat free for second half scores of 67, 12, and 1 yard to collect the septet of touchdowns and earn the school record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a whole team effort to get Tay the opportunities to bounce outside and do all the things he does so well,\u201d added Mack, \u201cthe offensive line was excellent, as were our receivers and backs in maintaining their blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other side of the ball, the Panthers were able to make some adjustments to keep the Wolverines at bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defense plays with a lot of heart and soul, and they take pride in shutting down the opposing team\u2019s offense,\u201d said the Panther head coach, \u201cand having the offense going now has really allowed our defense to flourish, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

M-CHS now travels to Pagosa Springs (3-3, 0-1 2A IML) for a massive league showdown with major playoff implications for both teams. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 13 from Archuleta County.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wheat\u2019s school-record seven TDs highlight homecoming win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31262","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","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31262","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=31262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81378,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31262\/revisions\/81378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31262"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}