Football: Coleville's dream season comes to an end

After surprising the rest of the state and putting together a 10-game dream run into the Nevada 1A State Semifinals, the Coleville football team met its match Saturday.

The Tonopah Muckers blindsided the Wolves, winning 52-16 to advance to the next round. The Muckers used a 32-0 first quarter to run away with the game.

"I think we were intimidated at the beginning of the game and our first quarter play suffered dramatically because of it," Coleville coach Will Sandy said. "We regrouped in the second quarter and played pretty well defensively for the rest of the game."

The Wolves got on the board in the second quarter on a two-yard run by quarterback Jason Peters. Peters his Trevor Anderson for the two-point conversion to cut Tonopah's lead to 32-8 at halftime.

Coleville traded scores with Tonopah in the third quarter as Marco Barajas caught a seven-yard touchdown and followed it with a two-point conversion catch to complete Coleville's scoring for the day.

Tonopah ended any chance of a Coleville comeback with two unanswered touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

Tonopah's quick and physical defensive line pressured Peters all day, sacking him 10 times and forcing 10 interceptions.

"Our offense really struggled all day," Sandy said. "Tonopah took our running game away and used a very quick defensive line to force Jason to run for his life.

"The bottom line is we ran into a very good team that was just quicker and stronger than we are. We never quit and continued to play hard until the end. The boys had an amazing season and it is a real tribute to our seniors that they were able to win 10 games."

Peters finished the game with 23 completions on 55 attempts for 236 yards and a touchdown pass.

Anderson led the Wolves with 110 yards receiving on eight catches. Emmi Sandoval caught six passes for 55 yards and Barajas caught seven passes for 32 yards.

Defensively, the Wolves were led by Sean Sherlock with six solo tackles and eight assists. Peters had five solos, two assists, one sack and one fumble recovery and Kyle Tidwell had three solos, three assists and one sack.

Coleville finished its season with a 10-1 record overall, going 4-0 in the Western 1A League to win the league title and clinch its first playoff berth in 15 years. The Wolves upset Wells last week to advance to the semifinals.