FARMINGTON --Turnovers plagued Westville throughout the game and Farmington pounced on the football at every opportunity, winning 27-12 on Thursday.
Westville's offense started in reverse helped by a ball-hawking Farmington defense. Blayton Fox stopped a quick-pitch for a 5-yard loss and the Yellowjackets tried to pass for a first-down but Farmington's Danny Valenzuela intercepted the ball with his return going to midfield. Reid Turner ran 33 yards to the Yellowjacket 17 on first down. He nearly scored on a jet-sweep before going out-of-bounds at the 8. Dimariare Donovan finished off the drive with a touchdown dash and Farmington led 7-0 with 5:55 to go in the first quarter after Raul Garcia kicked the P.A.T.
Westville answered with a 5 play, 65-yard drive converting a fourth and 7 from the junior Cardinal 35 into a touchdown on a pass play. The junior Yellowjackets went for the lead but a 2-point pass failed and Farmington maintained a 7-6 lead at the 3:34 mark of the opening period.
Farmington sustained a 70-yard scoring drive which took 8 plays and put a third touchdown on the board in the first quarter. Eric Hill completed passes, sandwiching Jacob Freeman's 13-yard reception and Valenzuela's 12-yard touchdown catch around a 27-yard throw to Valenzuela and Turner's 21-yard romp. Garcia booted the extra-point and Farmington led 14-6.
On the second play of the second quarter Westville suffered another turnover with Trace South picking off a pass on third-and-22. He was tackled immediately but Farmington took over at the junior Yellowjacket 25. On the ensuing play Valenzuela took a jet-sweep to the house. Garcia's kick was again true and the junior Cardinals were in front, 21-6, with 6:44 remaining in the first half.
Westville again got into a long yardage situation, this time due to a holding penalty and the pattern continued with a fumble into the teeth of the defense giving the ball back to Farmington. On first-and-10 from the Westville 32, Turner broke into the secondary and ran all the way into the end zone for another touchdown. This time the kick failed but Farmington held a 27-6 lead which lasted until a Westville touchdown midway through the third period.
Neither team scored after that and Farmington claimed a 27-12 win to rebound from a 19-0 loss at 5A West foe, Harrison, in week four. The junior Cardinals are now 4-1.
Westville coach Eddy Roberts said with his team having only four freshman, Farmington presents a difficult matchup.
"There's not a lot of participation in that [freshmen] class," Roberts said. "The offensive line could have played a lot better but the defense played really well. They could have checked it in when the score was 27-6 but they didn't. We had two fourth-down stops but we had too many turnovers. We had a couple of interceptions and we fumbled it twice."
Roberts appreciated Farmington's sportsmanship in playing their reserves after they scored 27 first-half points against what he described as essentially an eighth-grade Westville team.
"That makes you want to come back and play them again," Roberts said.
Farmington coach Tracy Sutton said there's not a coach on the staff, who believes in running up the score.
"Everybody got to play tonight. All week long the coaches did a good job of simplifying stuff. What we were focusing on was Farmington," Sutton said. "Against Harrison we had a good second half but not a good first half."
Sports on 10/07/2015