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SIERRA VISTA — Ironwood Ridge wasted little time raining all over Buena’s homecoming parade, scoring the game’s first 38 points and cruising to a 52-18 win.
“We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot,” Buena head coach Kent Holland said after his team fell to 1-4 on the season and 1-1 in 5A Southern Region play. “Our offense has to go forward. Our defense opened the game really well and then our offense would turn the ball over — you can’t give a team like that a short field.”
On Ironwood Ridge’s opening drive, starting tailback Adrian Brahler had rushed the ball six times for 56 yards to the Buena 15 when he left the game with a leg injury and did not return. That put the burden on Jacob Fischer, who stepped up to rush 16 times for 181 yards.
“We all had to step it up,” Fischer said. “I had to run the ball a little more tonight. I really haven’t run it all that much all season.”
  
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After holding the Nighthawks to a field goal on their first series, the Colts turned the ball over for the first of three times in the first half. The shotgun snap to quarterback Jeremy Tuttle sailed over his head and was recovered by Ironwood Ridge 25 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Three plays later, Fischer burst in from 15 yards out for his first touchdown of the season and his first of four scores on the night.
Buena fumbled the ball away again, and for the first half the Colts ran just 12 plays for a net total of six yards.
Ironwood Ridge scored five first half touchdowns, but without the benefit of a lot of big plays. Nine times in the game’s first 24 minutes, Buena forced the Hawks into a third down situation, and on eight of those times, Ironwood Ridge converted.
After the extended homecoming halftime, Buena went 80 yards on the opening drive of the second half, culminating in an 11-yard fade to the corner of the end zone to Deché Milburn on a fourth-and goal play. The drive was keyed by a pair of 45-yard passes from Tuttle to tight end Ryan Witt, the first on a short dump-off and the second on a straight fly pattern down the left sideline.
It was the start of a huge second half for the sophomore Tuttle, who completed just 1-of-6 for six yards in the first half, before completing 10-of-17 for 237 yards and two touchdowns in the second half before his night met a painful and scary end.
Hanging in the pocket on a fourth-and-10 from the IRHS 24, Tuttle hit Milburn on a touchdown pass, letting it go as he was buried by a pair of Nighthawk rushers.
With pain in his ribs and having some difficulty catching his breath, EMTs were called in and they strapped Tuttle to a stretcher. He had full consciousness and movement in his extremeties.
“(Tuttle’s) father wanted (the EMTs) to take care of that, and I can understand that,” Holland said. “They’re going to take him to the hospital and do some X-rays on his ribs.”
Wide receiver Alex Summers injured his knee earlier in the second half and also went to the hospital for diagnostics.
Holland said the sudden explosion in the passing game in the second half for the Colts was not the result of any special change in design.
“Right now with (Tuttle) being a sophomore, I didn’t want to throw him to the wolves too soon,” Holland said. “We took advantage. We can throw the ball well.”
Senior Joe Wallace came on in relief of Tuttle and he too left with an injury, reaggravating an ankle injury that has hindered him most of the season. Senior Billy Grant finished the game at quarterback.
Ironwood Ridge head coach Gary Minor was somewhat disappointed in his team’s second- half letdown, as Buena scored three of the first four touchdowns of the second half to nearly make a game of it.
“Obviously we let down some in the second half,” Minor said. “But we ended up getting a lot of guys banged up — that played a role ... They had a pretty good game plan and there were actually a couple of times our coverage was pretty good and (Milburn), he’s a good receiver and he came down with it.”
Milburn finished with five catches for 85 yards and two touchdowns. Tuttle scored the other Buena touchdown with a four-yard scramble with 3:51 to go in the third that made it 38-12.
On the ensuing kickoff however, Ironwood Ridge’s Scott Campbell ran 85 yards virtually untouched to put to bed any ideas Buena had of getting back into the game.
On the ground, Buena had no success at all, rushing 21 times for 30 yards while Ironwood Ridge ran 41 times for 314 yards and threw for another 110.
The game was marred by 32 penalties, 17 of them called against the visitors.
Herald/Review sports editor Matt Hickman can be reached by e-mail at sports@svherald.com.
jim g wrote on Oct 11, 2008 7:04 PM: