Sports

Shiprock takes advantage in district race

By Quentin Jodie
Navajo Times

CROWNPOINT, Oct. 31, 2011

With an automatic state playoff berth at stake, something had to give.

In the end, it was the Shiprock football team who prevailed as they beat Crownpoint 43-12 last Friday night.

Both teams entered the contest unbeaten in District 1-3A and now the Chieftains (5-3, 2-0) are two games away from clinching the league title, which includes the automatic bid.

On Friday, Shiprock will play at Wingate before closing out the season at Zuni next week.

Crownpoint (6-2, 2-1) finishes out the regular season with Thoreau on Friday.

"We kind of prepared for Crownpoint for two weeks," first-year Shiprock coach Don Story said. "Everything we did against Thoreau (three weeks ago) we were going to do against Crownpoint.

"But we were focused on this game for a number of weeks because we knew we had to come down here and beat a good team," he said.

Before Friday night's triumph, the Chieftains had yet to win a road game, but that changed as the Chieftains systematically broke down Crownpoint's defense with their flex-bone, double-wing offense.

And with some good blocking, the Chieftains ran rampant for most of the night and collected 406 yards on offense.

Manuel Lee had nearly half of those yards as the senior running back ran for 198 yards on 12 carries and scored three touchdowns despite a pulled groin. The 5'9", 155-pound speedster had scoring runs of 97, 21 and 62 yards and attributed his quickness to the time spent on the Chieftains' track team.

"I do a lot of sprints," Lee said. "I can run the 100 meters in 10 seconds flat, but the line did a good job. They opened a lot of holes for me to run."

And although Lee seemed to have gained all the big plays, the line was just as effective in opening gaps for the small running plays.

"Coach Steven Bekis has done a great job with the line," Story said. "They've been getting better each week and we were playing without our best lineman (Tom Hall). We'll get him back (this) week and he's 270 pounds and he's a lot better than all those guys."

In their first drive of the night, Crownpoint was forced to punt after going three-and-out. Unfortunately for the home team it was a short kick as Lee returned the ball 22 yards to set up a first-and-goal at the Eagles' nine-yard line.

Three plays later, Blake Hubbard ran in the final two yards and after the kick by Lee the Chieftains took a 7-0 lead with 9:02 left in the first quarter.

On their next drive, Crownpoint appeared to have gained some ground with their running game as they went 71 yards in nine plays, which included a 53-yard gain by sophomore Keevin Kenneth.

But after reaching Shiprock's 13-yard line, the Eagles only went another seven yards before turning the ball over on downs.

With very little room to breathe in the backfield, Shiprock was penalized on its second snap and the ball was moved half the distance from the goal line. On the next play, though, Lee scrambled 97 yards that gave the Chieftains a 13-0 cushion with 3:56 left in the opening quarter.

Before the period came to a close, the Chieftains found the end zone again as Hubbard completed a 62-yard, eight-play drive with a one-yard run with 0:13 left for a 21-0 lead. That drive was aided by a 27-yard gain from Alexander Benally as the Chieftains were facing a fourth-and-seven at the Eagles' 35-yard line.

"We just added that fake punt this week," Story said. "It went super and I was real happy with how we executed it."

Said Benally, "This was for the district championship and we've been preparing for (Crownpoint) all week. Everything we did seem to work out for us."

Midway through the second quarter, Lee tacked on Shiprock's fourth TD, this time ripping off 21 yards for a 28-0 cushion.

With 3:06 left in the first half, Crownpoint got on the board as they went 65 yards in eight plays culminated by a one-yard rush from junior quarterback Trevino Louie.

With that score the Eagles trailed 28-6, but it would have been much closer had they scored on their second drive of the night.

As a team the Eagles gained 154 of their 325-yard total in the first half, but they were plagued with turnovers as they gave the ball away six times, including two in the first half.

"We just got outplayed tonight," Crownpoint coach David Burns said. "We didn't play well and they did. They whipped us and I am not trying to take anything away from Shiprock, but we were out of school for two days (Thursday and Friday) and we were not focused."

After Shiprock went up 35-6 on a 62-yard touchdown run from Lee to start the second half, the Eagles had another drive stall as they turned the ball over seven yards from the red zone after going 48 yards.

"We just kept working and working," Shiprock linebacker Anthony Frasier said of the Chieftains' defense. "We had to figure out their offense and we had to try to shut them down."

For the most part they did, especially in key moments as Shiprock came up with two fumbles in the second half to stop Crownpoint's momentum.

One of those turnovers led to a score as Shiprock benefited with a short field. With the ball spotted on the Eagles' 34-yard line, Collin Begay and Alex Benally took turns moving the chain gang before Begay capped the drive with a one-yard TD run.

That score earned Shiprock a commanding 43-6 lead with 2:37 left to play.

In the ensuing moments, though, Crownpoint caught Shiprock napping as Kenneth found Elias Antone open for a 51-yard reception that earned the Eagles a first-and-goal at the four-yard line.

Senior running back Rene Jones ran in the final four yards and finished the game with 181 yards on 31 carries.

"We just gave up three long runs tonight including that last pass," Story said of the reception caught by Antone. "Other than that we held them."

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