Skyline gave Hamilton its best shot and lost.
Unfortunately, for the Coyotes that came in Week 5 and not in the first round of the 6A Conference playoffs on Friday.
Thirteenth–seeded Skyline was anything but at its best in a 49-27 loss to the No. 6 Huskies at Jerry Loper Field. It was a much different game that the 27-17 Hamilton win on September 22.
“We did something wrong this week in practice to come out and play like that,” Skyline coach Angelo Paffumi said. “I’ll take the hit. I’m not sure what it was, but we have to be ready to play better than that.”
The Huskies dominated early, scoring on their first three possessions before Skyline (6-5) answered with a Darius Glover 56-yard touchdown from Steve Castle.
Then the second quarter nearly mirrored the first as Hamilton scored the next three possessions before Castle connected with Glover on a long touchdown pass for a 42-13 Husky halftime lead.
“We couldn’t stop them early,” senior two-way lineman Aaron Romero said. “It wasn’t our best game. We had to play better than that, but we didn’t.”
The Huskies (8-3) were equally devastating through the air as on the ground to advance to the 6A quarterbacks against No. 4 Perry next week.
Quarterback Tyler Shough completed 16 of 25 passes for 219 yards with two touchdown passes to Brandon Schenks, who had 53 yards on three catches, and one to Tim Lockhart.
Then there was Jawhar Jordan, who had his fifth 200-plus yard rushing game at 249 with three touchdowns.
“They pretty much did whatever they wanted in the first half,” Paffumi said. “You can’t play the way we did against that offense or they are going to kill you. We are a better defensive unit than that but didn’t show it.”
Skyline never packed it in and played hard throughout to send the seniors out with some pride and show many of the underclassmen that played what playing for 48 minutes means.
“They’re going to big and physical,” Hamilton coach Dick Baniszewski said of Skyline. “They are going to play hard and play to the whistle.”
The senior class was small but proud.
“The Dirty 30 is who we are, and we showed that,” Romero said. “I’ll remember all of the guys and especially Coach. If I could pick any coach to play for I’d pick him every time.”
The younger players like Castle, who played with sore ribs, linebacker Zach Kriens (INT, 10 tackles), running back Ethan Truesdell (122 yards, two TDs) and the injured 1,100-yard runner Aaron Wood give the Coyotes hope to keep pushing the program forward.
“We will take some time off for a little bit but once we get back at it all I can do is think about next year already,” said Castle, who ran for 28 yards and completed 6 of 12 pass for 135 yards. “We know we are better than what we showed (against Hamilton). We’ll be back stronger and better.”
– Jason P. Skoda is a senior writer for MyNewsMesa.com. Send Mesa-based story ideas to jskoda@mynewsmesa.com.
Box score
Hamilton 49, Skyline 27
Sky 7 6 7 7-27
Ham 21 21 7 0-49
First
H – Lockhart 28 pass from Shough (Rusch kick), 9:51
H – Shough 10 run (Rusch kick), 7:16
H – Jordan 5 run (Rusch kick), 3:28
S – Glover 56 pass from Castle (kick), 1:16
Second
H – Schenks 24 pass from Shough (Rusch kick), 7:43
H – Jordan 5 run (Rusch kick), 5:22
H – Jordan 17 run (Rusch kick), 3:11
S – Glover 42 pass from Castle (2-pt failed), 1:02
Third
H – Schenks 20 pass from Shough (Obarski kick), 7:43
S – Truesdell 18 run (kick), 5:23
Fourth
S – Truesdell 6 run (Kriens run), 4:11
Team stats
S H
First downs 16 27
Rush-yards 40-175 35-323
Com-Att-Int 7-15-1 16-25-1
Pass yards 156 219
Total yards 331 542
Fumbles/lost 1/1 0/0
Pen-Yards 6-60 7-51
Individual stats
Rushing
S – Truesdell 21-122, Buchanan 4-11, Brown 5-11, Castle 9-28, Strobel 1-3. H – Jordan 21-249, Parsons 6-48, Shough 5-6, Chandler 3-20.
Passing
S – Castle 6-12-1-135, Brown 1-3-0-21. H –Shough 16-25-1-219.
Receiving
S – Glover 4-116, Truesdell 1-7, Manzanares 1-21, Bailey 1-8. H-Lockhart 4-67, Parsons 2-2, Schenks 3-53, Rice 1-15, Jordan 2-55, Hilton 2-25.
