Defense plus Devoux get vikings past yuma, 21-0
HOLTVILLE — For the second consecutive week, the Yuma Criminals found themselves in the Imperial Valley on a balmy Friday evening facing off against a team out of the Manzanita League.
But if they thought the Holtville High Vikings would oblige them with a repeat of the soft landing they had in Calipatria seven nights ago, they were destined to be disappointed.
Holtville seemed keyed in from the start and went on to choke the life out of the Criminals, 210, for their second consecutive shutout.
The Vikings’ high energy levels almost got the best of them on the opening play of the game, however.
The kickoff returner seemed a bit too eager to get going, moving before he had properly secured the ball. It bounced off his hands, but he was able to pick it up and gain a few yards before being tackled.
This would be a sub-theme of the night. Holtville didn’t play mistake-free football — they had a recurring issue with low snaps, among other things — but they did a very good job of damage control.
They would finish the night with no turnovers, despite several balls on the ground, occasionally coming up with loose ones by virtue of exquisitely timed magic.
On offense, the Vikings’ primary plan of attack was once again, “give it to Devoux and watch him go,” and once again this would prove to be just enough to keep the chains moving.
Sophomore running back Jose Devoux once again displayed his preternatural ability to turn tiny chinks of daylight into lengthy downfield trots, breezing past the century mark and scoring all three of Holtville’s touchdowns.
It must be noted that another disappointing passing day served as a counterpoint to Devoux’s game-breaking rushes. QB Noah Jongeward generally had more time to operate against Yuma than he had last week versus Desert Mirage — he certainly took fewer sacks — but despite the wiggle room he was given, the deep ball failed to materialize, with overthrows factoring in a couple of missed touchdown opportunities.
After the half, Yuma, like Desert Mirage before them, adjusted to the realities of an all-Jose-Devoux offense by sending about five guys after him on any given play. Forced to adjust, the Holtville coaching staff incorporated a few read option plays, allowing Jongeward to peel off a couple of nice runs of his own, but the star of the second half was the Vikings’ defense.
From their first drive of the game to their last, Yuma had a heck of a time moving the ball. There were moments, to be sure, when it looked as though they were finally about to put a drive together, but for the most part Holtville did a good job of snuffing out any threats.
One area in which they excelled was in creating turnovers, and a large positive margin in that statistic went a long way toward getting Holtville the win.
Before the game was through, the Vikings would come up with six takeaways — three fumble recoveries and three interceptions — and these plays tended to come at crucial moments.
Early in the second half, they had Yuma on lockdown.
The Criminals had had some success, in the game’s beginnings, rushing the ball with Bryan Escamilla. It was never enough to come up with any points, but it was enough to move the ball around a bit, in respectable 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust fashion. Following the break, however, they found their 3 yards being whittled down to none.
Then, in the fourth quarter, sitting on a cold goose egg in the thick of “now-or-never” time, Yuma decided it was time to throw a changeup.
They brought Escamilla under center and shifted their starting QB out wide. This seemed to throw a wrench into Holtville’s coverage schemes, and, taking advantage of the Vikings’ confusion, Yuma marched downfield and into the red zone.
With their backs against the wall, the Viking D, responded, taking advantage of the shortened field to swallow up all of the Criminals’ receivers before intercepting Escamilla in the end zone on fourth down to quiet the threat.
At this point the Holtville crowd became increasingly rambunctious, sensing perhaps, that the game was firmly in the bag, as indeed it was.
Speaking after the game, Holtville Coach Jason Turner was noticeably more chipper than he had been following the tilt with Desert Mirage. He was pleased with his team’s defensive intensity saying, “We saw what Yuma did against Calipat, and the way that they ran the ball so well. We knew that it was going to be a box game, and our defense kept us in the game and helps us finish [it].”
He noted his Vikings held up their end of the bargain pretty well after facing “teams that grind” in back-to-back weeks and commented that “having a run defense is going to go a long way this season.”