What passing game Mingus Union High School had did not travel with the football team Friday, Nov. 6, to Verrado High School in Buckeye.
Staying home with it, at least for the first half of the Division III state tournament first-round game, was any scoring punch.
“We just didn’t play well,” head coach Bob Young summed up his offense’s first-half effort. “We missed a lot of tackles and a lot of blocks. In football, when you do that, bad things happen.”
Coming up empty in both of those statistical columns usually results in a loss in the first round of the Division III state tournament — as it did for MUHS against the Vipers, 20-14.
“We couldn’t throw the ball at all, and we couldn’t protect the quarterback to throw the ball,” Young said. “The first pass we tried to complete was dropped. We had an interception, then got sacked on three or four others.
“I don’t think it ultimately cost us this game, because we could still run. But we probably win had we played a good first half [or] completed three or four of those.”
In his final football game as a Marauder, quarterback Jordan Upham ran in a touchdown from 38 yards out as part of a 118-yard effort on the ground that put him among the top 20 rushers in Division III.
“Unfortunately, the hardest thing to replace is usually the quarterback, so it’s going to be hard to replace Jordan,” Young said. “The next-hardest is the offensive line — those are the areas we have to focus on.”
For the full story and final divisional leaders, please see the Wednesday, Nov. 11, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
