The Durango Demons were beaten and battered after a 21-10 loss at home to Pueblo South on Friday night.
The seventh-ranked Durango High School football team had yet to lose a Class 3A South Central League game going into Friday night’s contest against last year’s Class 4A state champion Pueblo South Colts, who moved down to Class 3A this year and into Durango’s league that is filled with Pueblo teams.
The Demons (5-3, 2-1 SCL) held a 10-7 lead at halftime and into the final six minutes of the fourth quarter, but the Colts (3-5, 2-1 SCL) scored 14 points in the game’s final 5 minutes, 41 seconds to take a 21-10 road win, the team’s biggest of the season after a 0-4 start to the season.
“We’re a good football team,” Pueblo South head coach Ryan Goddard said. “We’ve played a tough schedule, and our kids played well tonight. Obviously, defensively, we had our work cut out for us, and we responded. We pressured the quarterback.”
Durango’s offensive line couldn’t create a pocket for DHS sophomore quarterback Jordan Woolverton to throw from, and it cost the Demons.
“We gotta get better at the basics, the fundamentals of football,” DHS head coach David Vogt said. “When you play a good team but you’re not fundamentally sound, that’s what happens. They blitzed us in certain situations, and we just didn’t pick it up. It’s about getting better and learning from it.”
A costly interception in the third quarter also cost the Demons a chance to take a two-score lead, as sophomore receiver Gage Mestas was leveled by a Pueblo South defensive back, and the ball sailed into the arms of Treveon Collins on the Colts’ 5-yard line. Collins returned it all the way to the Durango 46.
Pueblo South couldn’t turn the interception into points, but a Durango three-and-out on its next possession gave the Colts back the ball for a decisive drive. The Colts marched on a 58-yard drive that took 11 plays and ended on a 10-yard touchdown run by Cole Sniff that gave the Colts a 14-10 lead.
Durango was forced into the punt formation on its next possession, and senior running back Dawson Marcum was unable to pick up a first down on a fake-punt run. The turnover on downs gave Pueblo South the ball on the Durango 43 with around three minutes to play.
DHS’ tired defense couldn’t stop Sniff and Pueblo South quarterback Logan Petit to get the ball back to the Demons. With 14 seconds to play and the Colts facing fourth-and-6, the team tried a pass into the end zone, and Petit hit Cedric Tillman on a 26-yard touchdown pass over the top of Marcum to give the Colts a 21-10 lead with 8 seconds to play.
“Offensively, we got into a little groove,” Goddard said. “We started running the football there a little bit. There at the end, we had no option. We were too far out to run it and getting zero, so we had to run the best play for us and that was it.”
Marcum finished with 87 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries, as he surpassed the 1,000 yard rushing barrier with a tough 5-yard run in the third quarter. After the game, a beat up Marcum, who has played through injuries for several weeks, was in no mood to talk about personal accolades.
“I don’t really care about that,” Marcum said. “I care about winning. It was tough, really tough. A lot of hard hitting tonight.”
Woolverton finished 11-of-15 passing for 131 yards and one interception, but he was harassed by a tough Pueblo South defense all night and took repeated shots up high.
DHS looked like it would have the first touchdown of the game, as Marcum stripped a Pueblo South ball carrier on the game’s opening drive. Marcum picked up the ball and ran all the way to midfield before the referees ruled that the Pueblo South runner was down. One play later, Sniff ran in for an 8-yard touchdown to give the Colts a 7-0 lead with 5:48 to play in the first quarter. It was a 12-play, 80-yard scoring drive that ate up more than six minutes of clock.
“I stripped it,” Marcum said. “They didn’t blow the whistle until, I don’t know, Savion (Jones-Embry) was on the ground. The ball popped out, and I picked it up and ran.”
DHS looked to have another big defensive play in the first quarter when Alex Hise had a Petit pass thrown right into his arms. The Pueblo South receiver dove at Hise to try to make a quick tackle, but Hise broke free and returned the ball to the Pueblo South 5-yard line.
After pleas from the Pueblo South sideline, a flag came in very late for defensive pass interference to give the Colts back the ball.
DHS finally got on the board with 50 seconds to go in the first half on an 8-yard touchdown run by Marcum. A 32-yard pass from Woolverton to Marcum set up the score, and DHS tied the game.
Woolverton then executed a perfect onside kick, and DHS got the ball back with 45 seconds to go in the half. The team marched down the field, and Mestas hit a 21-yard field goal to give DHS a 10-7 lead at halftime. But it didn’t come before Woolverton ate another high hit to the head on the second-to-last play of the half.
Woolverton played in the second half, but the Demons simply couldn’t find a way to score against a tough Pueblo South defense.
“We had some opportunities,” Vogt said. “We missed some tackles on some wide-open lanes there with our guys. It’s about making those plays and then who knows what happens.”
Sniff finished with 70 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries for the Colts. Connor Huth added 53 yards on 13 carries. Petit was 8-of-19 passing for 94 yards and a touchdown. He completed only one pass in the second half, and it was the dagger touchdown. Petit also was intercepted twice, both times at the line of scrimmage by Savion Jones-Embry and Carver Willis.
Willis, a big 6-foot-5, 240-pound lineman, also had a pass reception for 1 yard in the game, as he caught a deflected Woolverton pass at the line of scrimmage.
DHS will try to get healthy for next week’s home finale at 6 p.m. Friday against Pueblo County. With a win, the team would still have a chance to win the league title at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at Pueblo East (6-2, 3-0 SCL).
“Next week is a big game. We have to take it one game at a time and then prepare for East when that comes,” Vogt said. “We will go back to the drawing board, put some rest in and some ice baths and hopefully get ready.”
Pueblo South now has strong playoff hopes despite the 1-5 start.
“We put ourselves in the picture now with RPI and all that stuff,” Goddard said. “We’ve played good teams, Durango is a good team, and now we have to take care of us. We control our own destiny. We will find out where we are after Week 10.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
