Mogollon clouds playoff picture by beating Vikings

The playoffs came early for the Mogollon football team this year.

The Mustangs needed to beat Williams Friday night to keep their season alive while the Vikings were looking to clinch a trip to this week's region playoffs.

Mogollon ended up with a 23-6 win over Williams to force a three-way tie for second place in the Canyon region of the conference. On Tuesday evening, Williams, Mogollon and Orme played in a "mini-playoff" at Winslow to determine which two teams would advance to the region playoffs with first-place St. Johns.

The mini-playoff was staged after the newspaper's deadline, therefore results do not appear this week. If Williams qualified, then the Vikings will play again Friday night. But if Mogollon and Orme nabbed the two spots Tuesday, then the Vikings' season has ended.

The loss to Mogollon on Friday night was difficult for the team.

"We didn't play with much emotion," WHS coach Rick Shipley said afterward. "It just didn't seem right from the start. I think that actually, we're as good as Mogollon but I think they came in here and had to win."

That's exactly what Mogollon coach Ron Tenney said after his team's victory.

"Our biggest drive tonight was if we lose, our season is over," Tenney said. "It was like the playoffs for us. And when our backs are against the wall, we do well."

For the second straight week, Williams saw the opposition take the game-opening kickoff for a long drive to the end zone. Mogollon went 60 yards in 16 plays to go up 8-0 with 2:06 left in the first quarter.

Trace Porter scored on a three-yard pass from Ryan Baker on fourth-and-goal. In fact, Mogollon converted on four third downs during the drive. The Vikings helped out by being whistled for three off-sides penalties. A fourth off-sides flag few on the point-after-touchdown conversion attempt.

"Offensively, we just haven't been clicking," Tenney said. "The little counter-cross stuff worked good tonight."

The misdirection plays had the Williams defense guessing at times. But the main problem appeared to be poor tackling.

Mogollon held the Vikings to three-and-out on their first drive. Joel Kurtz picked up seven yards on his first carry, but then the Mustang defense came up with a big sack to force a third-and-long.

Mogollon's second drive also went for a touchdown. The Mustangs went 52 yards in 10 plays, capped with a 35-yard TD pass from Baker to Dustin Johnson on fourth-and-20. Another successful two-point conversion put the visitors up, 16-0, with 8:15 left in the second quarter.

Williams again punted after three plays on the ensuing drive. Mogollon then drove deep into Viking territory but fumbled the ball away at the 27-yard line when Baker was tackled for a loss. Chris Loxterman fell on the ball for the fumble recovery.

The Vikings' offensive troubles continued as they failed to pick up a first down at all in the first half. At the intermission, Williams had just 14 yards of total offense.

"We didn't have the ball very much in the first half and we had too many breakdowns on defense," Shipley said. "I would have liked to have gotten into the end zone early in the second half."

Williams fumbled the ball away on the kickoff return to start the second half. But Mogollon was stopped on its next drive by the Viking defense.

Interestingly, even though Williams gave up a few big plays and failed on several third- and fourth-down conversions, the team had 18 tackles for losses in the game. Many of those were sacks on Baker, who had 12 rushing attempts for minus-50 yards.

Williams started its first drive of the second half on its own 20 and the Vikings appeared to be getting into a groove. The team moved the chains for the first time by picking up a first down with 7:45 left in the third quarter. It came on a Mogollon penalty but the drive continued.

Williams eventually reached the three-yard line and on fourth down, Mogollon stopped Kurtz short of the end zone. The Mustangs had 33 yards in penalties on the drive.

Mogollon took over and knocked the wind out of Williams with back-to-back big plays — a 39-yard completion and a 46-yard run to the end zone by Mark Crandell, who rushed for 139 yards on the evening.

Late in the fourth quarter, Williams scored on Mogollon for the first time since 1998 when Loxterman found Juaquin Ortiz on an eight-yard touchdown pass.

Williams finished the game with 106 yards of total offense, compared to 283 yards by Mogollon.

The Vikings fell to 2-2 in the region, 5-3 overall.

For information on a possible Williams game Friday, call the school at 635-4474.