<\/p>\n
With his team trailing 25-0 halfway through the first quarter of its home opener against Hotchkiss on Oct. 8, Dolores head coach Grant Hobbs sensed that it was going to be a long night.<\/p>\n
Refusing to throw in the towel, however, the Dove Creek High School graduate paced the sidelines while imploring his players to fight for every inch, scrap for every yard and reach for every first down.<\/p>\n
Although positive plays proved difficult to come by, Bears players appeared to be motivated by their head coach\u2019s words, and after falling behind 38-0 by the end of the first quarter, improved their play over the final three quarters of what ended up being a 52-0 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great feeling to be out here. We\u2019re just blessed that we get to play football,\u201d Hobbs said after the contest. \u201cWith all that\u2019s going on in the world right now, we\u2019re just trying to give kids opportunities. You don\u2019t always win in life and that\u2019s the message to them. We have to face adversity head on and we can\u2019t look away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the bright spots in the contest for Dolores was the play of junior fullback Levi Fuller, who brought the home crowd to its feet early in the third quarter when he delivered a crushing block that allowed junior quarterback Wyatt Koskie to race around the right side for a first down.<\/p>\n
Fuller then took a handoff from Koskie on the next play and smashed through the Hotchkiss defense for a gain of 10 yards before leaping to his feet and imploring his clearly energized teammates to play on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have much to lose, I was ready and I wanted to prove something,\u201d Fuller said, when asked about his big plays after halftime. \u201cIt really was great after about a year of being off the field. It wasn\u2019t the way we wanted it to turn out, but we\u2019re going to come back strong. I\u2019m proud of our boys\u2019 efforts even though the scoreboard didn\u2019t go our way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also delivering several impressive plays, including a fourth-quarter touchdown run that was called back because of to a holding penalty, was Koskie, who showed an innate ability to avoid pressure in the pocket before delivering accurate throws down the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy quarterback, the kid never stops,\u201d Hobbs said. \u201cHe\u2019s a grinder, he\u2019ll take a hit, he\u2019ll get out of the pocket, he\u2019ll create plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the play of Fuller and Koskie clearly energized the Bears, Hotchkiss\u2019s combination of size on the line and speed at the skill positions was too much for Dolores to handle throughout most of a night that began with a kick return by the Bulldogs on the opening play.<\/p>\n
A 69-yard run by Hotchkiss quarterback Yahir Chavez on his team\u2019s first offensive play from scrimmage and three punt returns for touchdowns by Blaine Peebles further buried the Bears, who struggled with tackling throughout the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they hang 52 (points) on you, I\u2019d say that (our tackling) has to improve,\u201d Hobbs said. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t have (enough) players to put a defense and an offense on your field during practice, it\u2019s kind of hard to prepare for live situations of tackling.\u201d<\/p>\n
With its record now at 0-1 on the season, Dolores will look ahead to what figures to be an exceptionally difficult road matchup against perennial state powerhouse Centauri High School, which will take place on Oct. 16 at a time that has yet to be determined.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur game against Hotchkiss was not the debut that I absolutely wanted, but it\u2019s the one that I\u2019ll always have and we\u2019ll move on from here,\u201d Hobbs said. \u201cNo excuse, we have to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First-year coach Grant Hobbs makes no excuses, promises that Bears will improve<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4845,38,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-american-football","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51086","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=51086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87893,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51086\/revisions\/87893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51086"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}