One may be the loneliest number, but one is a reason to celebrate for local youth football teams.
The Durango Demons’ third-grade Young America Football League team earned a 19-6 victory against the Farmington Scorpions in the semifinal round of the playoffs to earn a trip to the YAFL Super Bowl this Saturday.
The fifth- and sixth-grade teams both fell in the semifinals, giving Durango one representative alive to play championship Saturday.
The third-graders were led by the strong play of quarterback Linkin Griego, who had two touchdowns and 43 yards of offense. Cole Pontine also found the end zone and led a strong ground attack along with Wyatt Bartel, Cully Feeney and Braxton Waddell.
Defensively, Owen Arias had six tackles. Bartel, Feeney and Connor Jones each had four tackles to help hold Farmington to only six points.
The Demons will take on the Farmington Titans at 10 a.m. Saturday at Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington. The Titans entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed and Durango is the No. 2 seed, as the two sides have been on a collision course all season.
The sixth-grade Demons dropped a hard-fought game 26-7 in the semifinals to the Farmington Panthers. The matchup was four years in the making, with the Panthers entering the game the two-time defending champions.
Farmington scored early, but Durango’s Jordan Stanley scooped up a fumble and returned it 20 yards for a touchdown, with Emmet Thompson tacking on an extra point to tie the game at 7.
But it was all Panthers from there, as they scored 19 unanswered points.
Thompson finished with 105 yards on 26 carries against the grade’s top defense that had allowed an average of only three first downs per game entering the semifinals.
Wil Hadrick added 30 yards rushing on six carries. Defensively, Matt Pane led Durango with eight tackles, while Cassidy Maloney and Nate Messier each had six tackles. Kooper Mann added an interception, and Ashton Harrison recovered two fumbles for the Demons.
The sixth-grade team finished the season with 1,968 total rushing yards on 324 carries, good for a 6.07-yards-per-carry average. The sixth-grade players will split up next season at their respective middle schools.
The fifth-grade Durango team ended its season by Kirtland. The flu bug forced five starters to sit out.
Statistics and a final score were not made available.
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
