Going against a team that had notched two blowout victories against only one overtime loss in its first three games, the Mingus football team knew that it was in for a tough game when it hosted Bradshaw Mountain on Friday, Oct. 23. That’s exactly what the Marauders got. The visiting Bears controlled the game throughout and routed Mingus 42-6.
The game against Bradshaw Mountain is always one of the biggest on the Marauders’ schedule. This year’s game, however, had extra significance as it marked the return to Mingus for Bob Young. Young coached the Marauders for three decades but now serves as head coach of the Bears. Following the game, Young acknowledged that going against his former team felt strange.
“It was weird — I’m not going to lie,” Young said. “I’ve got a lot of great memories here, me and coach [Neil] Dixon. I’m proud of the way that Mingus always competed against Bradshaw. It’s a great rivalry. It was fun coming back over here and playing well.”
The game’s critical sequence came near the end of the first half. While Bradshaw Mountain dominated much of the first half, Mingus trailed only 14-0. The Marauders fumbled a punt to turn the ball over to the Bears but defense held strong, forcing a turnover on downs and giving Mingus a chance to potentially score and make it a one-possession game at halftime. Bradshaw Mountain, though, had other ideas.
On the first play of the Mingus possession, junior quarterback Zach Harrison was sacked and fumbled. The Bears recovered and immediately took advantage of the short field created by the turnover when senior quarterback Josh Grant connected with junior receiver Moises Hernandez for a 29-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the ensuing possession. That gave Bradshaw Mountain a 21-0 halftime lead and effectively iced the game.
“We gave up, that’s easy,” Mingus senior Zach Figy said, when asked what the difference in the game was. “You can see it in film. At the end of the half when they went in after the fumble, right there it was done. The game was over. You could tell that they were coming out and killing us in the second half.”
The field position battle told much of the game’s story, especially in the first two quarters. In their seven first-half possessions, the Marauders’ average starting field position was their own 25. Bradshaw’s average starting position was the Mingus 49. In fact, excluding the final possession of the first half, which ended after one play with the Marauders taking a knee, the Bears’ worst field position [their own 38] to start any first half drive was six yards better than Mingus’ best.
Much of that can be attributed to not only turnovers, but an offense that struggled to move the ball throughout the game. The Marauders did finish with a respectable 202 rushing yards, but 116 of those came in their final two possessions. By that point, the outcome of the game had long been decided.
Senior running back Drew Meyer led the Mingus rushing attack, running for 90 yards on 18 carries. Fellow senior Jonathan Sanchez added 87 yards on 14 carries and scored the Marauders’ only touchdown on an 18-yard run.
“Like coach says, we see flashes of greatness in us,” Sanchez said. “We’re not last year’s team. We just kill ourselves. The good things are when things go right. When we execute and do things right, it works. If we just do that the whole game, we’ll come out with a ‘W.’ But we keep killing ourselves.”
Figy however, saw things slightly differently. He noted some differences but pointed out a frustrating similarity to 2019’s 0-10 team.
“We’re just like last year’s team, except we play harder,” he said. “If you look at last year’s film, everyone was lazy and we shot ourselves in the foot because of it. This year we’re shooting ourselves in the foot because we want to, apparently.”
The loss moved the Marauders to 1-3 overall and 1-2 in 4A Grand Canyon Section play. Next up for Mingus is a road game on Friday, Oct. 30 against Lee Williams at 7 p.m. The Volunteers are 2-2 overall, 1-2 in section play and coming off of a 33-7 win over Shadow Mountain. The Marauders’ next home game will be on Friday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. against Coconino.
Three games remain on the Mingus schedule, though it’s possible that a fourth could be added.
Figy and Sanchez acknowledged that they’d of course like to win all of the remaining games. But both seniors expressed a hope that their team will show more effort for the remainder of the season.
“I would love to go 4-0 for the rest of the season or 3-0, whatever,” Figy said. “We’re lucky that we played this long but we haven’t taken advantage of it. That’s what I want to see — taking advantage of getting to play every day. There are schools down in Phoenix that don’t get to. We get to and we’re just nonchalant. We need to take advantage of being able to play.”
“The goal is to win all of them, obviously,” Sanchez said. “But what I really want to see is for us to improve. If we take a loss and everybody knows that everybody put in 100% effort, I’m happy with that, honestly. We can do what we can do. I want to see us improve. I want to see us go up, not go down.”
