The football coaches and players at Camp Verde High School mean no disrespect to their next opponent, Kingman Academy, before hosting Agua Fria Region leader Parker High School.

After running away from Page, 60-22, in their final pre-region test Friday, Sept. 24, the 4-1 Cowboys just realized what it would mean to take the unbeaten Broncs at home so soon after securing a road win over the 1-4 Tigers--and what effort, mentally and physically, it would take in order to pull off such an Agua Fria takeover. 

“It’s going to take everything that everybody has in practice, on and off the field,” said senior quarterback Jacob Oothoudt, who overcame a fumble on his opening play to run for a touchdown and complete all four of his passes for 82 yards and two more scores. “We’ve just got to get our heads in the zone, and not come down at all.”

Nor “take any plays off,” added slotback Matt Loza, another Camp Verde upperclassman who was following that philosophy when he ran for two first-half touchdowns of his own--including a pitchout from Oothoudt, following an interception by junior Garrett Dulaney, that Loza turned into a 55-yard dash down the sidelines for a 14-0 lead.

“We haven’t seen that from him this year at all,” Oothoudt said. “I mean, he’s always there whenever we need him, but, this game, he really popped off and did his thing. I was so proud of him.”

As the 2A Conference’s state title challengers begin to separate themselves from the pretenders, if the Cowboys win their Agua Fria opener at Kingman Academy, then manage to topple Parker at home, that would not only make them unquestionably a state title challenger, it would give them more than a game’s worth of edge on the Broncs in the race for the automatic bid to the 2A postseason, earned by regional champs, with a month of the regular season still to play.

Although the Cowboys, operating without a placekicker, were stymied on their first two-point conversion attempt, Loza trotted in the next one. By the time he was able to walk in his next touchdown, the Cowboys had scored two more touchdowns and tacked on two more two-point conversions to end the first quarter up 30-0.  

“That was just due to my linemen and the other receivers out there with me,” said Loza, who helped Oothoudt open the scoring less than five minutes in with a 35-yard touchdown reception of his perfect spiral down the Page sideline. “Shout out to my linemen, to the other slots, to my receivers, because without them I couldn’t have done it.”

Both of Camp Verde’s latter first-quarter touchdowns provided highlight-reel moments for two, arguably three, of head coach Rick Walsworth’s other playmakers. Sophomore Chris Sanabria obliged first when he stepped in front of Page junior quarterback Collin Joe’s quick sideline slant and took it 37 yards the other way, untouched.

Senior Wyatt Parker's run capped a quick eight-point play, making the score 22-0.

“That was just awesome to watch,” Loza said. “Playing the game [Chris] loves like that, he’s always been an amazing athlete. I played with him in [our] town league when I was younger. This year, he’s been working his butt off. Without him, we’d have a different team.” 

After the Sand Devils were forced into another three-and-out their next series, with under three minutes before halftime, head coach Leland "Bubba" Billie called for a punt from his own 20-yard-line. It was rejected by most of the Camp Verde defensive line, including junior tackle Jakob Evans-Flick, who broke through for the block. 

The next play, Oothoudt faded back and tossed a floater off of his back foot to wide receiver Bryce Seekins at the goal line. Falling down, the senior could not maintain control, but he bobbled and kicked the ball in the air right where another senior wideout, Matthew Nechvil, just happened to be able to grab it and run it in.

Yet another Cowboy upperclassman, Kayden Boggess--the conference’s ninth-leading rusher--punctuated Loza’s final touchdown with another two-point pitch to put Camp Verde up, 38-0, with 10:45 to play before halftime.

Four minutes later, with Loza comfortably resting on the sidelines, junior Samuel Williams came off the bench in his place and slashed 24 yards for a touchdown of his own. Seekins’ two-point conversion triggered the AIA’s mercy rule, with a running clock.

But despite being down 46-0, Page fought back, sustaining a drive to the Camp Verde 22. There, Joe rolled out, shrugged off several Cowboy defenders and found junior Connor Shirley standing alone in the left corner of the end zone. 

Joe could not convert the point-after pass attempt, but the game clock had stopped again. The Sand Devils had life.

At least until Loza came back off the bench, scooting another 28 yards around right end to set up Oothoudt for his quarterback sneak from the Page 2-yard-line, making it 52-6 heading into the half.

“We work on doing everything: We have pockets, reads, we do scrambles on all the formations with rollouts,” Oothoudt explained. “The thing is, we have a young team.”

Which only got younger the second half after Dulaney replaced Oothoudt behind center. There was seemingly no drop-off, as the Cowboys defense withstood a couple of long passes by Joe, only to make a stand on the 8-yard-line, forcing another Page turnover on downs.

Dulaney went right to work behind center, running wide and finding the seam in the Page defensive line. With one downfield block, he was free.

Ninety-two yards later, the Cowboys were up 60-6, a shellacking the Sand Devils seemed destined for heading into the fourth quarter, especially after Camp Verde junior Bennett Cain’s fumble recovery.

But Joe still never stopped fighting, leading the Sand Devils to a final five minutes in which they doubled Camp Verde's second half point total. With 4:48 to play, Joe rolled out at his own 40 and found junior receiver Aiden Nix behind the secondary.

The 60-yard touchdown pass was punctuated by a two-point conversion pass, also from Joe to Nix, and the single-digit thrashing became slightly more respectable.

But Joe wasn’t done. Page got the ball back for a final drive, and Joe, with better coverage on his receivers, scrambled to keep the drive alive himself, moving the chains one 13- to 18-yard chunk at a time.

His three-yard keeper for the final Page touchdown was a tribute to his unquenchable persistence, with Shirley’s two-point reception making the final score seem more of a shootout than a blowout.

“We’re going to need to just work on playing our zones and staying home every play, because there are some plays where all of us will kind of get sidetracked,” Loza said. “We’ll miss blocks [and] we’ll leave our zones on defense when we should be more disciplined.

“But we should get that these next two weeks.”