Winslow stays unbeaten in 3A North: Bulldogs capitalize on turnovers in 27-0 win over Chinle

CHINLE – The Winslow football team had a different look last Thursday night.

The Bulldogs were coming off a bye week, but they had an effective running game in its 27-0 win over Chinle in 3A North action.

The visiting Bulldogs welcomed back starting quarterback Gino Quinones. With the sophomore taking charge behind the line of scrimmage, the Bulldogs had a new wrinkle in its offense with senior Ty DeSpain moving back to his original position.

“My quarterback came back, and he got hurt in Week 1,” said Winslow coach Brandon Guzman, whose team improved to 6-1 overall and 3-0 in region play. “Ty DeSpain filled in as quarterback and he played great. He did a great job for us, but he’s a stud running back.”

DeSpain was responsible for carrying most of the load for Winslow’s running game. The stout running back racked up 218 of Winslow’s 347 yards on the ground.

“We played really heavy in trying to run the ball,” Guzman said. “I thought Ty and Bryce Williams did a great job, but it’s unfortunate that we had a lot of turnovers. We worked on our offense for two weeks with our quarterback coming back.

“We just had a lot of miscommunications in the handoff,” he added. “We focused on taking care of the ball, but we didn’t do that today, so that was the frustrating part.”

Winslow had four turnovers while Chinle had three. In two of those giveaways, the Wildcats (3-3, 1-2 in 3A North) had two promising drives evaporate with junior quarterback Ryan Brown getting intercepted in the end zone. Winslow junior cornerback Emanuel Bollin and free safety Joseph Guerrero had a hand in those takeaways.

“We had an opportunity to catch the ball, so they did a really good job,” Guzman said of his defensive players. “With (Chinle) passing the ball really quick, we played them man defense. We had one over the top and that is when Emanuel got that pick in the endzone.”

Chinle coach Pita Olomua said the intent was to hit his tight ends with a quick pass but his first-year quarterback held it too long.

“He floated it, and the safety was sitting there,” he said. “He’s still learning and, you know, there is more about quarterbacking than just throwing the ball and handing it off.”

Olomua said he’s working with a young team as most of his starters graduated last year. It didn’t help that Olomua was also missing 14 players in his lineup last week due to injury.

“A lot of these kids are first-time seniors playing,” he said. “I’m having to go young, but we’re paying the price. This is our sixth game of the season and we should be showing some maturity.”

Although he does have some athletes on his squad, the Chinle coach said, “they don’t have the football smart.”

“If you don’t have that football experience it’s really hard,” he said. “We just need more experience. It’s a young team, but hopefully we’ll mature as we go.”

After fumbling its first possession in the opening stanza, Winslow’s Joseph Guerro returned a punt for a 57-yard score. The successful PAT earned the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead.

Following Bollin’s interception, the Bulldogs went 80 yards with Quinones sneaking in the final five yards for a 13-0 cushion with 7:05 left before the half.

The Bulldogs pushed its lead to 21-0 with DeSpain scoring on a 3-yard TD run at the 8:06 mark of the third quarter. In that 57-yard drive, he was responsible for 42 of those yards on six carries.

Winslow tacked on one more score with 8:15 left in the fourth quarter when they completed a 62-yard drive with senior Rudy Gonzalez scoring from five yards out.

Besides DeSpain, Quinones gained 51 yards on the ground on eight carries for Winslow while Gonzalez had six carries for 43 yards that all came in the second half.

Chinle gained 126 yards on offense with Brown completing 10 of 25 passes for 75 yards.

“I expected Chinle to run the ball a lot more in the first half,” Guzman said. “They threw the ball a lot, which surprised me, but I have probably one of the best lines in the state.

“We don’t blitz a lot because we don’t have to,” he added. “We can get to the quarterback, so a lot of quick game stuff threw us off a little bit so we had to make some adjustments.”

Guzman acknowledged that his team did get lucky with a few dropped passes by Chinle.

“They had some wide open guys that could have ran for a lot of yards,” he said. “Sometimes you have to be lucky on defense too, so we were lucky on that aspect.”

Both teams will step away from 3A North action as Chinle will host St. Johns on Friday night while Winslow plays Kingman tonight in Snowflake as the designated home team.

“For us to be 6-1 with one home game this year, I’m very proud of my boys and my coaches,” Guzman said. “I don’t care who you’re playing, it’s hard to play on the road and it’s hard to win. I just can’t say enough about them.”

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