Havasu Wins A Thriller Over Deer Valley

By Lonnie Stevenson

Only 20 seconds were left in Thursday night’s varsity football game with the score tied at 27. Havasu had the ball at the Deer Valley 34-yard line. Senior quarterback Keilor Pizarro  dropped back and found fellow senior wide receiver Koen Taylor down the left sideline, threw a beautiful pass that floated over the outstretched hands of a Deer Valley defender, landing in Taylor’s hands at the 4-yard line. Taylor then absorbed the hit of another Deer Valley defender before tumbling into the endzone with the go-ahead touchdown.

“Kailor and Koen just made a crazy, crazy play,” said head coach Tanner Kelly after the game. “I’m very proud of these guys. With all the injuries we’ve been dealing with, there’s no quitting in this team.”

Havasu was in this position because just 26 seconds earlier, senior linebacker Landen Musselman, had stripped the Deer Valley quarterback of the ball, which was then recovered by senior linebacker Vincent Fiantaca,  giving Havasu a chance.

Just before that, Deer Valley had intercepted a Pizarro pass with Havasu driving giving Deer Valley the ball and a chance to win the game in the final minutes.

“Our defense stood their ground,” Kelly continued. “Landen had a big strip sack and that gave us a chance.”

Havasu opened the scoring in the first quarter, taking the opening kickoff down the field, capped off by a six-yard run by junior Frankie Taylor,  putting Havasu up 6-0.

Then Havasu junior lineman Travis Dennen, recovered a Deer Valley fumble giving Havasu the ball back.

Pizarro and Taylor would connect a few play later and Havasu was quickly up 12-0 midway through the first quarter.

But then the Havasu offense sputtered and wasn’t able to do much of anything else the rest of the first half. Deer Valley, meanwhile was able to put a couple of drives together, scoring a pair of touchdowns and took a 13-12 lead going into halftime.

“We went up 12-0 and I thought we kind of took our foot off the gas a little bit.” Kelly said. “So we talked, (at halftime) about how this is what we expect from a region game. It’s going to be a heavyweight fight going back and forth.”

Deer Valley took the kickoff to start the third quarter and made a big, 49-yard pass play to go up 20-12.

The Havasu offense failed on the next possession giving the ball back to Deer Valley and the momentum was all on the Deer Valley side.

Deer Valley was moving the ball and inside Havasu territory when junior linebacker Nick Sousa, (No. 52) would grab a screen pass that bounced off the Deer Valley player and scrambled 50 yards into the endzone, tying the score at 20-20 and bringing the momentum back to the Havasu side.

Pizarro would later connect with junior Maddox Cosentino, (No. 6) from nine yards out, and Havasu was up 27-20 going into the fourth quarter.

But that lead didn’t last long when Deer Valley scored early in the quarter to tie the score at 27 setting up the dramatic last nine minutes of the game.

“We might get hit in the mouth a few times.” Said Kelly, “But we’re going to hit back. We’re at a point in our schedule that we can’t afford any more losses if we’re going to make a playoff run.”

Havasu came into the game ranked 28^th in this weeks 4A rankings going into this weekend’s games. The top 24 teams make the playoffs with the top eight receiving a first-round bye. Then the 9-16^th ranked teams host the 17-24^th ranked one in the first round of the playoffs.

Havasu improves their record to 4-3 now on the year with three games left on the schedule. Next Thursday night, the Knights travel to Buckeye to take on the Youngker Roughriders.

“We’ll get into the film room this week,” Kelly said. “We’ll see what we did right, what we did wrong and fix the mistakes and avoid some of the penalties. We’re on the road next week but I think this group is hungry.”

After the Youngker game, Havasu then returns home Friday night, Oct. 23, when they host the Estrella Foothills Wolves for senior night. Gametime is 7 p.m.

Havasu’s last game of the season, Oct. 30, is at Somerton.