<\/p>\n
The atmosphere was unbeatable, spectators filled the stands, home-cooked burgers were aplenty and touchdowns came in bunches. Touchdowns for the home team that is.<\/p>\n
Playing their 2013 homecoming game against the Nucla Mustangs on Friday, Sept. 20, the Mancos Bluejays football team started fast and stayed strong, registering a memorable 76-0 victory.<\/p>\n
Clad in their home blue jerseys and visibly fired up, the Bluejays opened the game on defense and following a huge hit by sophomore Everett Strazza-Whalen and two straight tackles of Nucla ballcarriers behind the line of scrimmage, the Mustangs were forced to punt.<\/p>\n
Leaving no time for pleasantries, the Bluejays offense immediately went to work, and after a holding penalty negated an impressive run on their first play, sophomore quarterback Alex Morgan dropped back and delivered a strike to sophomore Adrian Hernandez, who sprinted down the left sideline for the score.<\/p>\n
A successful 2-point conversion on a run by Strazza-Whalen, put the score at 8-0 in favor of the Bluejays with nine minutes left in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
After a sack by Bluejays\u2019 freshman Axel Bonde, the home team\u2019s offense went back to work, scoring quickly on a 45-yard option-run down the right side by Morgan.<\/p>\n
Following another successful 2-point conversion on a pass from Morgan to junior Brandon Hood-Farley, the score stood at 16-0 with 7:36 to go in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Looking to add to their lead, the Bluejays scored again with 3:24 to go in the first quarter when Strazza-Whalen took a handoff from Morgan and sprinted 10-yards off left tackle to stretch the Bluejays\u2019 lead to 22-0.<\/p>\n
Less than two minutes later, following yet another Mustangs\u2019 three-and-out, the Bluejays scored their fourth touchdown of the first quarter on a 46-yard pass from Morgan to senior Steven Rohweder.<\/p>\n
A subsequent 2-point conversion on a run by Rohweder lengthened the Bluejays lead to 30-0 with 1:52 to go in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ability to play as a team, cooperate and not yell at each other helped us tonight,\u201d said Rohweder. \u201cWe played like an actual team and a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continuing to apply pressure to close out the first quarter, the Bluejays scored again on a safety after senior Bryan Jaime tackled a Mustangs\u2019 ball carrier in the end zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can play,\u201d said Jaime, describing his team\u2019s fast start. \u201cWe can compete with everyone. Our line did magnificent tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two plays after Jaime\u2019s big safety, Morgan scored his first rushing touchdown of the game on a 20-yard scamper, and after a successful 2-point conversion, the Bluejays led 40-0 as the first quarter came to a close.<\/p>\n
The Bluejays\u2019 scoring onslaught continued into the second quarter as senior Chace Sanders scored on a 45-yard punt return and Morgan scored on a 23-yard touchdown scramble. Following a successful 2-point conversions after both touchdowns, the Bluejays led 56-0 going into the half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing like (homecoming),\u201d said Bluejays\u2019 senior Ty Koppenhafer, describing one factor that led to his team\u2019s brilliant first-half performance. \u201cBefore the game, I was fairly emotional. This is (the seniors\u2019) last homecoming, and we came out here and owned it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beginning the third quarter much in the same way that they started the game, the Bluejays scored again, this time on a 59-yard play-action pass from Morgan to Hood-Farley, which, after another 2-point conversion, put the Bluejays ahead 64-0.<\/p>\n
Roheweder would then score his second touchdown of the game on a 32-yard run off a reverse to put the Bluejays ahead 70-0.<\/p>\n
One last touchdown on a 44-yard run by Strazza-Whalen closed out the Bluejays\u2019 scoring, giving the team a 76-0 victory.<\/p>\n
Speaking of how special the homecoming experience was, Bluejays senior Magellen Leyva, a transfer student from Texas said, \u201cI love it. It has been a great experience for me to move out here and show people what Texas ball is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special as \u201cTexas ball\u201d might be, it would have been difficult to top the quality shown by the Bluejays in their homecoming victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
impressive in blowing out Nucla 76-0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-57183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183","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=57183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60766,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183\/revisions\/60766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57183"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=57183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}