By George Zeliff
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The Fountain Hills High School football team (2-6) fell on the road to Show Low Friday, Oct. 6.

The Falcons’ defense forced five turnovers but the offense never got going in the 26-7 loss.

“They had some issues with taking care of the football, and we felt like we could create some turnovers,” head coach Pete Schermerhorn said. “We got some at a couple of very opportune times, preventing scores. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to generate much offense from them. So there was a good and a bad. We did a good job of creating those opportunities and then didn’t capitalize.”

Senior Nate Barnard and sophomore Brayden Ledrew recovered fumbles in the red zone, and junior quarterback Sam Barnard recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass. Sam didn’t have any turnovers on offense, despite being sacked five times.

“They got a lot of pressure on us,” Schermerhorn said. “They created a lot of pressure with their front five and they did a little bit of blitzing, but they created a lot of pressure.”

The Falcons struggled on the ground and became one dimensional without success running the ball. Senior Gannon Young grabbed a deep ball for 31 yards and followed with an 18 yard touchdown catch right before halftime to make it 14-7, but the Falcons failed to score in the second half.

The Falcons held the Cougars to just 50 passing yards and senior Jaxson Buther also caught an interception, but the Cougars found their groove on the ground and rushed for more than 200 yards.

Schermerhorn talked about turning the page and focusing on what’s next. The Falcons only have two more games left this season, but he and his assistants have been building up habits that lead to consistent program success all year. Schermerhorn said they’ve worked on practice habits, game habits, and habits in school and in the community.

“We want to try to make sure we build a solid foundation of those kinds of habits,” Schermerhorn said. “Continue to work hard to the best of our ability, [and] prepare ourselves well to give us the best chance to have success. If we do that, everything else takes care of itself.”

The Falcons have another long bus ride to No.13 Morenci (4-3) Friday, Oct. 13. They close out the season at home against No. Round Valley (3-4) Friday, Oct. 20. Both games kickoff at 7 p.m.