Aug. 24—It really was just Coaching 101 for Landrick Brody.
If you stopped to think about the West Mesa High School head football coach’s dilemma on Saturday at Nusenda Community Stadium, which will be outlined directly, there wasn’t much need for Brody to overthink things.
With the quarterback position in distress, Brody at halftime of the Mustangs’ game against St. Pius simply turned to his big men, his offensive line, and put the game on them.
“I told them at halftime, just because of that predicament we had at quarterback, it was up to them to take over the football game, and they did that,” Brody said. “I’m so proud of those guys.”
The final tally on a hot afternoon was a 48-29 Week 1 victory for West Mesa.
The Mustangs went through no fewer than four quarterbacks on Saturday — ironically, none of them was even the projected starter on this team.
That was half of the West Mesa problem. The other half was St. Pius sophomore tailback Hershul Olloway Jr.
Olloway was nothing short of spectacular. He dashed and darted and cut around West Mesa defenders for over 200 yards in the first half alone, including three long touchdown runs, the longest being 87 yards.
Because of him, St. Pius led 21-20 at halftime.
Then Brody turned to his linemen, and West Mesa dictated things along the line of scrimmage in the final two quarters, asserting its physicality and wearing the Sartans down.
One of those four QBs was Ronnie Gilletti, who is listed as a wide receiver.
He scored on two touchdown runs to open the third quarter, the first from 46 yards out, the next a 3-yarder. Those scores, at 10:28 and 6:19 of the third, put West Mesa in front 34-21, and it also effectively took Olloway out of the mix.
“Honestly, I just think we came together as a team. We locked in,” said Gilletti. “I had to keep everyone cool and just run the offense…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/west-mesa-overcomes-huge-day-030100996.html
Author : Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Publish date : 2024-08-25 03:01:00
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