Lengthy road trips, and East vs South, are the theme for three of the four area football teams this week. Winslow and Snowflake will be traveling to Tucson on Friday, while Holbrook will play in Queen Creek on Saturday afternoon. Joseph City will be the only local football game as the Wildcats host Williams.
The Winslow Bulldogs fresh off a 26-0 shut out win over Chinle last week will take a 2-2 record to Tucson where the team will meet up with the Tanque Verde. The Hawks come into this game with a 1-2 record although the Hawks have yet to play a fellow 3A school. The Hawks have played two 4A schools and one 5A school thus far. After being outscored 100-6 in the first two games, the team picked up its initial win of the season last week with a 21-7 victory over Rincon High School.
Winslow has impressive wins over Monument Valley and Chinle, but playing in the heat in Tucson after a long road trip may be enough to make this game close. Tanque Verde, which plays in the 3A South Division, doesn’t appear to have a lot of offensive firepower but hosting the team’s first 3A opponent of the season will surely get them fired up. The long bus ride, combined with playing in what is expected to be over 90-degree weather might be enough to give the home team the edge in this one.
Snowflake is coming off a big game last week in which the team handed Page the first loss of the season, putting up 50 points in the process. The Lobos, like the Bulldogs, will be traveling to Tucson to face a 3A South team in the Pusch Ridge Lions. Pusch Ridge won its season opener but have been outscored 54-7 in a pair of losses the last two weeks. The Lions have played only 4A teams through the first three weeks, and will be seeing its first 3A level competition in the Lobos.
Snowflake is 3-1 with wins over Florence and Page in the past two outings. Like Winslow the Lobos will be facing a long road trip and a heat factor this team isn’t used to. Unlike the Bulldogs, Snowflake appears to have enough offensive firepower to navigate those roadblocks and the Lobos should move to 4-1 on the season, although the game might be closer than some expect.
Holbrook will also be traveling south where the Roadrunners will be playing Sahuarita, an opponent located south of Tucson. However, due to the excessive distance the two schools have agreed to meet at the American Leadership Academy/Ironwood School located in San Tan Valley. The Mustangs are also part of the 3A South division. Sahuarita is 2-1 on the season with the team seeing its first loss coming last week in a double overtime 21-14 setback against an unbeaten Coolidge Bears team.
Holbrook is now 1-1 after last week’s 18-0 home field shut out loss at the hands of Ganado. The Roadrunners will definitely need to find more offense if the team expect to make the long trip home with a win. This game is scheduled to kick off at 5 o’clock on Saturday afternoon with temperatures expected to be in excess of 100 degrees. The heat factor, combined with a long bus ride, combined with a quality opponent may be too many hurdles for the Roadrunners to overcome.
Joseph City will be the only local team not boarding a bus this week. The Wildcats, now 2-1 and fresh off a win over Mayer last week, will host Williams. The Vikings are unbeaten and demolished Bagdad last week 65-12. The team averaged over 60 points a game in its first three wins.
Joseph City opened its season with a six point loss to Bagdad but bounced back nicely with wins in the past two weeks. Williams appears to be a solid team. With the outcome against the only common opponent being tilted in Williams favor, the edge in this game would have to lean towards the Vikings leaving Joseph City with their unbeaten record intact. Joseph City has played better of late, but will the team have enough firepower to keep up with a team which is putting up over 60 points per game is the question which will be answered on Friday night.
