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Above: Raydon Kuehne outpaces the Merritt tacklers en route to the end zone, scoring on an 85-yard fumble recovery with Adden Zanghi providing blocking support. -
Below: Dane Corbin wraps up the Merritt running back for a loss. Bob Henline | The Cordell Beacon -
Parker Johnson recovers a Merritt fumble. Bob Henline | The Cordell Beacon
The Cordell Blue Devils earned their fist win of the season last week with a 42-20 road win over the Oilers of Merritt.
Cordell’s defense has been stingy for the past couple of games, but in this outing the offense came out with the same intensity and the effort paid off for the Blue Devils. Cordell ran up four touchdowns in the first half, two of those in the final three minutes. The defense maintained their tough play, keeping the Oilers away from the end zone with a combination of exceptional line play, penetration, and pass defense.
The Blue Devils worked an effective combination of running and passing during the fist half, with Dane Corbin carrying the bulk of the running game. Quarterback Adden Zanghi kept the chains moving, making good decisions from the pocket and delivering clutch passes to all of his receivers, even running in cases when his pocket collapsed.
Cordell blew open their biggest lead of the night almost midway through the third quarter when junior Raydon Kuehne picked up a Merritt fumble on the 15 yard line and then proceeded to run 85 yards for the touchdown, most of it with Zanghi throwing blocks to open the path.
After two Merritt touchdowns, Corbin took the handoff from Zanghi and went around the right side for another Cordell score. Zanghi connected with Alex Grissom in the end zone for the two-point conversion and a 40-14 lead with five minutes left to play. The Oilers took the ensuing kickoff all the way back for a touchdown to close the gap to 40-20. Cordell’s tough defense then clamped down on Merritt and forced a safety, giving the Blue Devils a 42-20 lead with under a minute to play. The Devils let the clock run out to secure their first win of the season.
“Friday night was the first game that I felt that the offense incorporated what we do in practice into their skill set in the game,” said head coach Zane Trammell. “Adden Zanghi is only going to continue getting better each game. He loves to compete, and it’s obvious that he is getting more and more comfortable throwing the ball in the pocket. He was able to go through his reads and work back to his receivers to throw in rhythm. Much of his success is due to his front line and receivers. Every position group is getting better each week. That being said, we still have a lot of work to do until we are where I would like us to be. The defense is playing responsibility role defense, which is exactly what we preach in practice.”