Page explodes for win over Monument Valley

KAYENTA

Not since 2014 has the Monument Valley football team lost a conference game.

The Mustangs had won 10 straight but that streak came to an end last Friday night when the Page Sand Devils showed explosiveness with a 28-14 win.

“MV is a great football team and (head coach) Bryan (Begay) does a great job with his kids,” Page coach Mitchell Stephens said. “We knew it was going to be a fight and we knew it was going to be close.”

With the win Page improved to 5-2 overall and 2-0 in the 3A North Conference. Monument Valley, meanwhile, drops to 4-2 overall and 0-1 in league play.

“We have a group of seniors that haven’t beaten Monument Valley as a varsity program so they were real determined to get it done,” Stephens said. “Our goal is to win a regional championship and we knew this was going a big bump along the way. We knew we had to get this one.”

After losing 27-20 to their archrivals last year, Page junior running back Kele Meredith said they wanted to turn the tables.

“I think we deserved this win because we have been working our tails off every since we took the loss last year,” he said.

With an experienced backfield, Stephens said his team can hurt a lot of teams so they have to pick their poison. But for the offense to function properly they need to have their offensive line playing at a high level.

“We tell them all the time that they are the backbone of this team,” he said. “Whatever we do, whether we’re successful or unsuccessful, it starts with those guys.”

After a scoreless half, Stephens challenged his O-line, which consists of Jacob McCabe, Kyle Ybanez, Levi Telshaw, Adelbert Begay, Cameron Billy and Conner Begay.

“We challenged them to make big plays and obviously they responded,” he said.

Monument Valley couldn’t stop the Sand Devils’ running game as the Mustangs gave up several big plays to senior quarterback Jacob Doyle and junior running backs Hayden Gracia and Meredith in the second half.

“I thought our boys played tough in the first half but we had some mental lapses in the second half,” Monument Valley coach Bryan Begay said. “(Page) made the adjustments and they started hitting short side because we were overloading the box on the strong side.”

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