PHOTOS: See a photo slideshow of Friday night’s game here<\/a>]<\/p>\nFrancisco, who scored a touchdown on the proceeding possession, intercepted a pass along the left sideline. The Bears didn\u2019t find much yardage after that, however, and the 14-7 score in favor of the Falcons was preserved. TMHS sacked backup quarterback Dosey Berry on back-to-back downs to force one final punt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the backbone of this team right now,\u201d TMHS coach Randy Quinto said about the defense. \u201cCoach Derek (Loftstrom) has got these guys flying around and doing a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the first win of the season for TMHS after losing in Week 1, 3-0, to South Anchorage. The Falcons enter a bye week before they return to their home field play Juneau-Douglas High School in a non-conference game Sept. 1.<\/p>\n
In the second play of the game, the Bears fumbled the ball in the backfield near the 20 yard line. The ball rolled upfield several yards before senior Roy Tupou gathered it and went straight to the end zone.<\/p>\n
With just 57 seconds taken off the clock, the Falcons went up 7-0. Noah Heidersdorf made the extra point for TMHS.<\/p>\n
Later in the first quarter, senior quarterback Shaun Walton, who threw for 132 yards in Week 1, left the game with an apparent leg injury. On a second and 12, Walton juggled a snap, and unable to hand the ball off to his intended target, was mobbed by a tackler after a desperation gain. Walton limped off the field, and watched the rest of the game sitting alone on an aluminum bench with his leg propped up.<\/p>\n
Berry played the rest of the game at quarterback.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to throw half of the playbook out, we brought in a freshman,\u201d Kodiak head coach Bill McGuire said. \u201cHe did a nice job, Thunder Mountain \u2014 they got after us \u2026 we had trouble protecting the quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the brazen start to the game, TMHS couldn\u2019t turn out another touchdown, and the score remained 7-0 at halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came in at halftime and we decided we needed to pound the rock a little bit, control the line of scrimmage, and build a little confidence with those guys up front,\u201d Quinto said. \u201cWe were up 7-nothing at halftime and the guys were kinda down like they were losing, and so we had to pump them back up like, \u2018Hey, you guys are actually winning the game, let\u2019s go, control this game right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The team heeded their coach\u2019s advice. TMHS began the second half with a 55 yard drive initiated with several Tupou runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they started leaving the middle open, so we just kept pounding the middle until they\u2019d get sucked in,\u201d Tupou said.<\/p>\n
On the fourth play of the drive, with the ball on the Falcons\u2019 47 yard line, Owen Mendoza faked a hand off out of the shotgun formation. Running right, the senior threw 30 yards to an airborne Hansel Hinckle, picking up 34 yards on the play.<\/p>\n
The Bears, who sport a 26-man roster, denied Mendoza\u2019s next passing attempt though, this time to Tapia.<\/p>\n
Freshman Noah Heidersdorf\u2019s 31-yard field goal attempt missed the mark, but TMHS would get the ball back later the quarter.<\/p>\n
After a Tupou interception, the home team made good on their second try of the half. Mendoza used his feet on a 40 yard run down the left sideline. Moments later, the QB found junior wideout Caleb Traxler for 10-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s his first game this year, but he stepped up really well,\u201d Tupou said of Mendoza.<\/p>\n
The score remained 14-0 at the close of the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Despite several incomplete passes, Kodiak sustained its fourth quarter drive with several TMHS penalities. Francisco made a clean catch on the goal line before tripping his way into the end zone for the Bears\u2019 only score.<\/p>\n
For a recap on Juneau-Douglas High School\u2019s Saturday night football game against Ketchikan, go to JuneauEmpire.com\/sports or look in Tuesday\u2019s newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kodiak was down seven points and a QB before some fans even made it to their seats Friday night. And yet, thanks in part to a big fourth quarter by Kodiak\u2019s Joel Francisco, the Bears had a chance to tie Thunder Mountain High School with under three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":13138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13137"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}