Badgers Rebound With 16-6 Win

Photo: 5 Lucy Zembik returns the ball after picking off the Desert Mountain pass with 26 Eloiuse Ptak Tamarlin with a great effort to pull the flag

The Prescott Badgers scored two first quarter touchdowns and added a late field goal to beat the Desert Mountain Wolves 16-6 at Prescott High School. The win comes a day after Prescott lost a tough battle 13-7 to 6A Pinnacle down in the valley.

Quarterback Rylie Hart threw touchdown passes of 3 yards to Brinkley Larson and 20 yards to Halle Terelak-Foster to put the Badgers up 13-0 after one quarter. 

Photo: 12 Ella Pifer looks to avoid some Wolves after her interception in the first quarter

Meanwhile the defense was creating havoc for the Wolves. Interceptions by Lucy Zembik and  Ella Pifer in the first quarter kept the pressure on the visitors just to stay in the game.

The offense cooled off but the defense continued to step up to thwart any and all threats by the Wolves in the first half. Desert Mountain had the ball at the Badgers 14 yard line in the final 30 seconds of the half but back to back open field tackles by Zembik and a last second pass into the end zone defended by Isabella Ramos and Brinkley Larson fell incomplete to end the threat.

The third quarter was played mostly between the 20 yard lines as neither team threatened the other to score.

Photo: Halle Terelak-Foster with the stop of the runner 33 Sasha Drelick

Prescott saw a repeat by Zembik again with two huge tackles with the ball at the Badgers 28 resulting in a turnover on downs early in the fourth quarter.

Zembik said, “That was fun tonight. I think the difference between this year and last year is that there’s so much faith in this team.  I feel like any single person on the sideline could go out and do their job and that we all have faith that they can go into their job.” 

Larson came up with two interceptions in the final 7:33 eliminating two more offensive threats by Desert Mountain. Larson added a 27 yard field goal to put Prescott on top 16-0 with 3:29 left. Larson said, “I’m on the weak side defensively so when I see the pass coming my way I’m like oh my gosh and go after it. I think we have a lot of faith in each other so it’s really dynamic.”

Desert Mountain spent the final 90 seconds trying to break the shutout. After exhausting all three of their timeouts, they succeeded on the final play of the game when quarterback Caroline Workman bought just enough time to throw the ball to the corner of the end zone where Dalena Hopkins ran to make a good catch for six points. The Badgers held on the two point try ending the game.

Ella Pifer said, “We went through some adversity and came out stronger and more aggressive. We need our defensive secondary to come after those passes. You have to see the whole field and when you don’t, it’s hard so you just have to be looking out and just be aggressive when you do. Then once you pick it off, you’re looking down the field at the end zone.” 

Ellie Richards said, “Tonight we were more hyped than we were in the last game. I think we’re all really excited. We had a rough start yesterday and now we really showed up for ourselves and for our team and it worked really well.”

Prescott coach Ryan Hart said, “Yeah, a lot to think about tonight because we went down to Pinnacle last night and didn’t play our best game. We lost by six points to a 6A school so that was kind of on our minds today coming back into another one. We were glad we were quickly able to play again. There’s some spots where we feel really good about how the offense looks and how the defense looks. There’s also some spots where we feel like there’s a lot of opportunity to grow so we can compete with the better teams. I am really proud of our girls tonight, everybody contributed. There was a positive outlook even after you come off a loss, so I’m just happy to see them all doing their jobs and having a good time learning. We have a lot to work on but it’s early in the season.” 

Photo: Despite the pressure, quarterback Rylee Hart is locked in on her receiver

Next up is Monument Valley, which is the third game in a three game stretch. The Badgers will have a repeat week later in the season. Hart said, “It is not so big now but later that third game will be at Flagstaff. This coming Monday we start what I think of as the region gauntlet. We get Mingus on the road and these back-to-back games will be a test for us. We don’t get to game plan very much. It’s really just the coaches and we get together and figure out hey can we watch some film? When can we get it to the girls? What can we actually focus on prioritize and then we go to the next game and tougher opponents are going to make that even more difficult and we know that but we’ve got a good group of seniors and leaders that we rely on that can play in a lot of circumstances and the pressure is on so we’re gonna just deal with schedule the way that it’s built and be ready to bash. We possibly can try to get some rest not having those practice stuff but that’s how this sport is built throughout the state. A lot of teams have this so we’re gonna fight and see if we can’t capture the region again one game at a time.” 

The Badgers improve to (2-1) while Desert Mountain drops to (2-1). After their home game with Monument Valley on September 23, Prescott will open Grand Canyon region play at Mingus on Monday at 6pm.

PRESCOTT BADGERS 16, DESERT MOUNTAIN WOLVES 6

Score by Quarters-     1       2       3       4     –     T

Desert Mountain         0       0       0       6     –     6

Prescott                     13      0       0       3     –    16

Scoring Summary

P-Larson 3 yard pass from Hart (Kick failed)

P-Terelak-Foster 20 yard pass from Hart (Larson kick)

P-Larson 27 yard Field Goal

DM-Hopkins 16 yard pass from Workman (Pass failed)

FLAG FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD

Prescott 16, Desert Mountain 6

Deer Valley 7, Bradshaw Mountain 2

Desert Sunrise 55, Tempe 0

Dysart 17, Marcos de Niza 3

Lee Williams 28, Estrella Foothills 11

Mingus 20, Verrado 7

St. Mary’s 3, Crismon 0

Westview 34, Peoria 0