Kofa shuts out San Luis 45-0

San Luis has tried a lot of things during its 45-game losing streak. This week it was the power offense.

The power wasn't quite powerful enough as the Sidewinders were blown out by Kofa 45-0.

San Luis ran the ball between the tackles all night long, but only made it past the first down marker three times.

“We did what we could do,” said San Luis head coach Mark Shields. “We'd honestly hoped for a better result, but it just didn't turn out that way. We just don't have the outside speed, we did try to run outside a few times and just got bottled up.”

The Sidewinders were held to just 59 total yards by the Kofa defense.

Kofa has two wins on the season now, both against San Luis. Kofa head coach Kevin Moore was well prepared for what San Luis (0-9) was going to throw at them.

“That's what they did against us five weeks ago, so that's what we prepared for this week,” Moore said.

The big win for Kofa was in the yellow flag department. Kofa drew only two penalties all night, which was a big improvement from weeks past.

“I thought we played really well,” Moore said. “We didn't have very many penalties, maybe one or two all night, which was much better than the last time we played them. We had good discipline and it was a lot better. I thought we took a good step forward moving on to next week.”

After going three and out in their first series, San Luis lined up for a punt, but faked it. It didn't seem to phase Kofa (2-7), though they weren't expecting it.

“They lined up to punt and we figured they'd probably kick it,” Moore said. “So we were a little surprised when he took off running but our kids did a good job making tackles.”

San Luis went for it on almost every fourth down in the first half. Shields said he looked at fourth-down situations and not punting is what works best.

“Almost 100 percent of the time, whenever we punt, they get better field position if we punt than when we turn it over on downs,” he said. “Or they'll return it for a touchdown.”

Kofa running back Michael Klakulak took a big hit to the head and was slow to get off the field. Moore said he's going to be fine.

The positive for Shields is that he's starting to have consistency in personnel and commitment from his players each week.

“The No. 1 thing is I have 30 guys that are coming to play and we haven't had that the past few years,” Shields said. “It's the end of the season, we still got this many guys, that's a great thing. I'm really happy to see that.

“It's harder on them than it is on me. These are guys that haven't ever won a game, ever. This is our 45th straight loss and they're going to go away from high school having never won a game unless we beat Cibola next week, and those are pretty long odds.”

But as long as the kids want to play, Shields will be there to coach them.