The Durango Area Youth Football League fourth-grade team is headed to the Four Corners Youth Football championship game.
In the semifinals last week, the fourth graders came with a mission and beat Cortez 32-0, to advance to the league’s title game. The team is 8-0 on the year heading into the big game.
The team’s offense came out strong in the semis, with Tobias Romero rushing for three touchdowns and Jay Paulek running for one more. Sawyer Sigle also threw a touchdown pass to Braxton Ernst. Dominic Caton caught a pass for an extra point, and Jacoby Thompson ran in another.
The defense continued to play well to shut out Cortez, and was led by the defensive line of Grant White, Sabre Johnson, Paulek and Bubba Whalen.
The championship game will be at Navajo Prep in Farmington at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
Two other teams from Durango also made runs in the playoffs, but was eliminated over the weekend.
The sixth grade team played Bloomfield in its semifinal contest but lost 37-7.
In the first half, Durango played great on defense to only allow Bloomfield six points. In the second half, Bloomfield got a touchdown right away and continued scoring for the remainder of the game. Durango scored a touchdown and converted the extra point in the second half, but was never able to get ahead. YAFL said it was proud of the players thanked head coach Brandon Perkins and his staff for making this team's last year of YAFL a memorable one.
The fifth grade team faced the Aztec Tigers for their second playoff game but lost a close contest 13-0. Durango upped its game and ran a new defense to counteract Aztec’s powerhouse offense. Ely Pinto showed up big and had two sacks and multiple tackles for losses. Blake Bates intercepted a pass and ran the ball for 60 yards. Tommy Munn had a great game with a strip sack and a fumble recovery. While Durango’s defensive game was strong, Aztec still scored two touchdowns and an extra point. Durango’s offense also had big runs by Colton Winn, Levi Schwettman, Blake Bates, Greyson Ochocki and Carter Kerlin. Nehemiah Pacheco had some good passes to connect with Greyson Ochocki, Owen Megorden and Colton Winn. Unfortunately, Durango was unable to reach the end zone.
YAFL thanked head coach Kenny Schwettman and his staff.
