While the Sedona Red Rock High School football team had shown some flashes of being competitive through the season, putting a good, four-quarter effort together against a quality opponent had proved elusive. That changed on Friday against North Pointe Prep.
The visiting Scorpions went on the road with a short-handed roster. Despite that, they not only hung with the Falcons, but defeated them, prevailing 32-28 in what was a back-and-forth game.
“We went there with 16 guys and our linemen never came off the field on both sides of the ball,” SRRHS coach Bob Young said. “We just found another gear that we haven’t had all year. We kept chugging away and proved that we could finish the game.”
The two teams had exchanged leads throughout the game. Late in the third quarter, Sedona’s Xavier Stimple caught a swing pass from Christian Welch and went 70 yards for a touchdown to put SRRHS ahead.
With eight minutes remaining, the Scorpions took the ball nursing a precarious 24-20 lead. SRRHS proceeded to march down the field and capped the drive off with a touchdown run from Stimple, his third score of the game. Almost as good as scoring, Sedona took more than six minutes off of the clock, effectively sealing the game.
That drive was made possible from strong play from the offensive line, which was a theme through the game. Young praised the play of linemen Ramiro Alvarez, Lee Loughnane, Dorian Stephens, Robby Sheehan, Gierman Turincio and Oden McGinness, noting their input on both offense and defense.
“We did a great job on the line of scrimmage,” Young said.
North Pointe Prep did score in the final minute to create some tense moments at the end but only had enough time for an onside kick. Sedona recovered and ran out the clock to secure the win.
In addition to the three scores from Stimple, the Scorpions got another touchdown from Welch. Like SRRHS, North Pointe scored four touchdowns. The difference in the game came in the conversion attempts. With neither team kicking extra points, the two-point plays were critical. Relying on Welch’s decision making on swing plays, the Scorpions successfully converted on all four of their attempts. North Pointe, meanwhile, was only 50% on two-point tries, which gave the game its final margin.
The win was the second of the year for SRRHS. It wasn’t as decisive on the scoreboard as the first, a 52-6 routing of Rock Point. Despite the much tighter margin of victory, Young did not hesitate in calling the win over North Pointe his team’s best effort of the season, especially given the prior struggles.
“Rock Point wasn’t very good — it was a good little confidence builder earlier in the season,” Young said. “These guys were defending region champs and had some big wins earlier in the season …. The guys showed themselves that they could win a game like that. It’s hard to be confident when you’re 1-6. Most of these guys are going to be back next year. Hopefully these guys can use this to build some confidence going forward.”
The win moved the Scorpions to 2-6 overall and 1-2 in 2A Salt Section play. Next up is another road game. This one will be against Valley Lutheran on Friday, Oct. 25. The Flames come into that game at 3-4 overall and 0-3 in section play. Most recently, they lost 55-14 to Veritas Prep.
Following that, SRRHS will return home and play host to Antelope [5-3, 2-1] in the final game of the season on Friday, Nov. 1.
Both remaining games start at 7 p.m.
