Ben Parris is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Desert Edge High School for AZPreps365.com

Desert Edge’s three turnovers proved to be costly Friday night as its seven-game win streak came to an end in a 33-27 loss to Cactus.

A wayward backward pass on the Scorpions’ first offensive snap of the game set the tone for the crucial regional contest. Cactus never took its foot off the gas and cashed in on Desert Edge mistakes to beat the Scorpions for a third consecutive season.

“They capitalized on turnovers. They turned the ball over once, we turned the ball over three times,” co-head coach Marcus Carter said. “Usually, the team that makes the less mistakes wins the football game. That’s pretty much what happened tonight.”

After turning the ball over on its first drive, Desert Edge went three and out and turned the ball over on downs. Quarterback Hezekiah “Buddha” Millender and the Scorpions’ offense got off to a slow start as the junior completed only one of his first eight passing attempts in the loss.

Cactus would strike first on the first play of the second quarter, as running back Julian Stubblefield capped off a 63-yard drive with a 9-yard touchdown rush. The score seemed to be a wake-up call for Desert Edge, which came straight down the field in four plays to tie the game, thanks to a 26-yard connection from Millender to wide receiver Jaqua Anderson.

Despite forcing a turnover on downs on fourth and goal on the following Cactus possession, the Scorpions were unable to get out of their own end of the field. A short, 19-yard, punt gave Cactus the ball back at the Desert Edge 21-yard line, a place that would take the Cobras only three plays to score from to regain a 14-7 lead.

Millender and the offense would march down the field to try to respond again, but an interception thrown in the end zone would allow Cactus to be the first team to take a lead into halftime against Desert Edge this season.

“The coaches told us to stay calm, everything we were doing was working. We just had to capitalize,” Millender said the message was to the team at halftime. “We weren’t capitalizing in the first half and coach said, ‘capitalize this half.’”

After Aundre Gibson returned the opening kickoff in the second half for 40 yards, Desert Edge capitalized on a five-play, 57-yard drive that ended in an 18-yard touchdown for Millender, who scrambled away from pressure and found the end zone, tying the game at 14. Cactus would keep throwing punch for punch with Desert Edge and would once again retake the lead with a 12-play, 75-yard drive of its own, spanning over 5 minutes in the third quarter.

Desert Edge would not be able to tie the game for a third time as it fumbled the ball on its own 20-yard line with under 5 minutes remaining in the third quarter. Three plays later, Cactus made the Scorpions pay as it extended its lead to two scores.

“For us, it was the mistakes,” Scorpions co-head coach Mark Carter said. “Giving them short fields and doing stuff like that, they are going to capitalize. They are a good football team. You have to get stops and we didn’t.”

The fight wasn’t quite over for Desert Edge, which would trim the Cobras’ lead to 27-21 midway through the fourth quarter, but a 13-play drive spanning nearly 6 minutes would bleed the clock and end Desert Edge’s hope for a comeback when the Scorpions got the ball back, down 33-21, with just over 2 minutes left.

Millender would add one more score at the end of the game after a roughing-the-passer penalty set up an untimed play from the 2-yard-line, but it was too little, too late as the 33-27 score was the game’s final.

“That’s why we came here to coach and that’s why people come here to play, they want to play in meaningful games,” Marcus Carter said as his team dropped into a three-way tie in the 5A Desert West Region standings and were aiming for an Open Division playoff spot heading into the week.

“It’s like life,” he said. “Adversity is going to strike and how are you going to bounce back from that?”