{"id":9170,"date":"2017-10-01T19:38:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T02:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/falcons-finish-6-1-with-devastating-defense\/"},"modified":"2017-10-01T19:38:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T02:38:57","slug":"falcons-finish-6-1-with-devastating-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/falcons-finish-6-1-with-devastating-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons finish 6-1 with devastating defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thunder Mountain High School put on a defensive clinic Saturday in their final regular season game against Juneau-Douglas High School.<\/p>\n

A month removed from a tight overtime win over the Crimson Bears, the Falcons showed they\u2019ve corrected more than a few mistakes since then, winning 26-8 at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys came out and they had something to prove. We\u2019ve basically been underdogs all season long and so this is big for us,\u201d TMHS head coach Randy Quinto said.<\/p>\n

TMHS\u2019 Jacob Tapia intercepted the first pass of the game and JDHS managed just two plays in the first quarter for positive yardage.<\/p>\n

Late in the second quarter, the Falcons forced a safety as several linemen converged on JDHS quarterback Max Wheat. Before getting sacked, Wheat chucked the ball upfield, which counted as an intentional grounding and two more points for the Falcons.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur line coach, Jeff Hedges, he likes to say \u2018five fingers, one hand, you all work as one,\u2019 and that\u2019s kinda our motto,\u201d TMHS senior tackle Ivan Williams said. \u201cWe were kinda flat in the first half of the season, we were struggling on the line. But now I feel we\u2019re picking up our blocks, we\u2019re noticing blitzes, we\u2019re adapting to other different defenses right now so I think the line is at an all-time high right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Roy Tupou racked up two touchdowns on two and 11-yard runs. He ran for 134 of his 161 total yards in the first half alone.<\/p>\n

Tupou scored at 11:12 of the first quarter and 2:26 of the second. Tapia scored the second touchdown of the game on a two-yard slant play at 1:15 in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cCredit to my lineman \u2014 without them, I wouldn\u2019t be able to do what I was doing today,\u201d Tupou said. \u201cWe saw that the right side was open, so we kept hitting the right side.\u201d<\/p>\n

JDHS\u2019 Donavin McCurley had eight carries in the first half but just two in the second. McCurley appeared shaken up late in the first half and was used sparingly thereafter. After running for 121 yards against North Pole the week prior, McCurley never found room to run against Thunder Mountain.<\/p>\n

After throwing two interceptions in the first half, the Falcons coaching staff used the second half as more throwing practice for Mendoza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe passing game was just not quite there tonight,\u201d Quinto said. \u201cOwen actually threw some beautiful balls and didn\u2019t get much help from his receivers and that\u2019s tough. Then they started getting on each other a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Crimson Bears made good on a 10-play, 52-yard drive at the end of the third and start of the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

On a third and one on the two-yard line, Nathan Van Sickle recovered a goal line fumble to score the only touchdown of the game for JDHS. Koen Schultz made an impressive catch for the two-point conversion.<\/p>\n

It was one of several plays Crimson Bears fans found reason to cheer in an otherwise lopsided game.<\/p>\n

Injured seniors Lance Galletes-Fenumiai and Bubba Stults both drew cheers when they touched the ball.<\/p>\n

The JDHS senior class gathered on the field after the game. Senior Kasey Watts gave a pep talk before they huddled together to pray with one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love them with all my heart. I grew up with them, I played football with them,\u201d JDHS senior John Elisoff said. \u201cMost of them, my very first year (playing football), they were on my team, and I still remember those days, we were playing on the dirt fields tackling each other and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thunder Mountain now heads for the third straight year to the Alaska School Activities Association First National Bowl Series Division II Football State Championships.<\/p>\n

The Falcons play the Palmer Moose in the semifinals in a rematch from last year\u2019s playoffs. The Moose won that game, 28-26, to eliminate TMHS.<\/p>\n

If the Falcons win their Oct. 7 game at Palmer High School, they will advance the championship game Oct. 14 against either Soldotna or North Pole.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


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 <\/p>\n

\u2022 Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thunder Mountain High School put on a defensive clinic Saturday in their final regular season game against Juneau-Douglas High School. A month removed from a tight overtime win over the Crimson Bears, the Falcons showed they\u2019ve corrected more than a few mistakes since then, winning 26-8 at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Field. \u201cThese guys came out and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":9171,"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-9170","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\/9170","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=9170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9170"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}