Although Sedona Red Rock High School had five more football players than St. Johns High School available at home Friday, Aug. 26, the Redskins’ readiness was all in a 22-0 opening shutout.
“There’s guys out there still thinking this is our first scrimmage game,” said head coach John Bradshaw, who had less than half of the 28 Scorpions on his game-day roster show for their intrasquad scrimmage Aug. 18. “This is our real football game.”
The outcome was aggravated by a deep ankle bruise that kept starting quarterback Chas Rescigno out of the offense for all but one play of the final three quarters.
“If Chas doesn’t go down with a hurt ankle, I think it’s a different outcome,” Bradshaw said. “That’s a hard-hitting football team right there, so I didn’t want to take the chance of a concussion. We can’t get out of that.”
Junior starting running back Javier Pacheco was forced into emergency duty as a signal-caller.
“He did awesome,” Bradshaw said. “For three days of practice and barely any quarterback experience, he was a beast, especially on defense.”
Although the Redskins were the more-penalized team and couldn’t score in the first quarter, SRRHS could not capitalize on any opportunities.
Five fumbles did not help the Scorpions’ cause, with senior Xavier Turnbull’s first at his own 16-yard line leading to the first St. Johns touchdown 43 seconds into the second quarter.
Another Turnbull fumble led to the Redskins’ big play of the night, a 51-yard touchdown run around right end with 2:15 before halftime. A two-point conversion allowed St. Johns to take a two-touchdown lead into the locker room.
Although junior Branaghan Cunningham’s third-quarter interception kept St. Johns from putting the game away, another Pacheco fumble dropping back defined a second half in which SRRHS couldn’t shake a bad case of the cough-ups.
“We’re going to have to address ball control,” Bradshaw said. “We’ve got a few things to fix. These guys will take a look at what they have to do on film, come back and hopefully get a lot better.”
