GILA RIDGE
eye touchdown, a 32-yard run for Perez. And like that, Gila Ridge faced a 22-0 deficit before the second quarter.
“They’re just a really good team,” Semler said. “Buckeye’s strong; we knew that coming in. They’ve got a lot of athletes. They made big plays. And that’s how football goes; it’s a game of big plays, and they made them.”
Gila Ridge got on the board after a fumble recovery set up a short field, and Esteban Franco ended up kicking a 42-yard field goal.
But Buckeye saw those three points and showed its opponent 15 more in only two plays. The team’s first play was a 69-yard pass from Perez to Anthony Smart, followed by another successful two-point conversion. Gila Ridge senior quarterback AJ Juarez threw an interception to JC Stanley, who returned it 49 yards for a touchdown to make it a 37-3 game.
At that point, Gila Ridge started to show signs of life. An 11-play, 75-yard drive was completed when Juarez crossed the goal line on a 5-yard run. Gila Ridge then recovered an onside kick and got inside the 10-yard line on a pass from Juarez to Dom Jones. Jones was stripped of the ball, though whether he should have been ruled down is debatable, and Buckeye recovered.
It proved to be a potential 14-point swing as Perez dashed to the end zone on a 73-yard run shortly thereafter.
Perez nearly had 300 yards on his own in the first half. He was 6-for-13 with 138 yards and three touchdowns, and had five carries for 155 yards and two scores.
“In high school football, if your quarterback’s athletic, that’s something you can’t gameplan for,” Semler said. “Really at every level, other than the NFL, you see mobile quarterbacks, and they’re effective because they can throw the ball and hurt you that way, and if you have everything covered, they can bail their team out and pick up some yards with their legs. Their quarterback did a great job of that tonight.”
Juarez’s first pass on the next possession was intercepted by Elias Anderson, and Buckeye’s field goal put the halftime score at 47-10.
Gila Ridge had four turnovers in the half, the two interceptions by Juarez and two lost fumbles for Jones, who otherwise had the team’s best offensive game with eight catches for 99 yards.
“We turned the ball over three times in the red zone,” Semler said. “That’s 21 points we left out there, and that’s on us. There’s no excuses there. … We’ve got to take care of the ball better.”
Juarez ended up throwing 45 passes, completing 17, for 188 yards. The positive takeaway for Semler, which he relayed to his players after the game, was the way in which they moved the ball well through the air, something they have struggled with since starting quarterback Kaleb Cota suffered a season-ending injury against Cibola in the third game.
“We had guys running open, and sometimes we’d miss them, and sometimes we’d drop it,” Semler said. “When we caught it, it looked great, offense was easy and flowing. I just tried to use that as the silver lining and show the guys that when our offense is clicking, and we do the right thing and do our assignment, it’s going to be good football.”
The final two quarters went quickly after Buckeye’s final score midway through the third quarter enabled the running clock, which starts at a point differential of 42 points or more. Buckeye had 499 yards of total offense.
Gila Ridge will be back at Veterans Memorial Stadium next week to take on Youngker, another Southwest region opponent.