By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
ALBANY, Ore.– The Dallas defense came in clutch when they needed it the most.
Coming out of halftime, the Dragons led West Albany 18-14. It was the second quarter in which either team had any kind of offensive footing with both squads scoring twice in the second 12 minutes after Dallas led 6-0 after the opening quarter.
But in the third quarter, it became more of the defensive battle that the first quarter saw. Bending, but not breaking. The Bulldogs created a turnover on the first defensive possession of the half and began marching.
With their feet against the wall and West Albany on the brink of taking the lead, Dallas got a huge stop and eventually got the ball back. And from there, they began to produce a long drive of their own.
They got to the Albany one-yard-line when the third quarter began, and on the first play of the fourth quarter, the Dragons extended their lead to 25-14 off a run play up the middle.
“We needed to play good defense if we wanted to have a good chance to win that game in the second half. That’s what it came down to, and we all did that. We all worked together, practiced what we did all week, practiced what we’ve been doing all season, work together, and came out on top,” said Landon Holbrook.
That defense continued to hold strong into the fourth en route to Dallas’ first win over West Albany since September 23, 2022, to improve to 6-0 on the year. It wasn’t the prettiest of victories, but Dallas found a way.
“What’s awesome about our team is that no matter how we play, we give 100 percent no matter what. We got smacked in the mouth, we didn’t do too well in the first quarter, but then we put it on them,” said Thomas Hess, who threw for three touchdowns in the victory.
Friday’s win was the first of a trilogy of daunting games, however. They follow this game with Willamette for their Homecoming Game on Friday before facing Silverton for quite possibly for the league championship on October 24 in Dallas.
It was their closest margin of victory to this point in the season, sure, but they’ve learned a lot going into this next week in preparation for the Wolverines on Friday back in Dallas.
” Just battling through. If things don’t go our way, we still have to battle through and find a way to push through,” said Holbrook.
“This was great. It gave us some good competition to see how we are. It was a test and a battle,” adds Hess. “We’re going to improve on all of our blocking. We had a couple of mistakes on blocking and a couple of mistakes on routes, I threw a couple of bad balls. We have a lot to fix, but we’ll get them next week.”
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
