Manitou needs to maintain possession to fend off savages

Manitou Springs’ Ronnie Bohnert watched his defense pick off La Junta’s quarterback for six points and knew his team would have what it took to win.

The momentum from the play allowed Manitou Springs (5-4) to beat La Junta (3-6) 27-14 Friday night in Tiger territory.

“We had a lot of momentum after one of our corners had a pick six,” Bohnert said.  “That put us up 21-7.  We had a lot of momentum then and we just sustained it with our defense.”

While the defense came out firing, the Mustangs offense started slowly, only scoring seven points in the first half.

“We played pretty well overall but a little sloppy early on,” Manitou Springs coach John McGee said.  “In the second half we focused in on (protecting the football) and we didn’t have any turnovers and things went well in the second half.”

Manitou Springs will need to maintain possession of the football this Friday to keep a visiting Lamar (7-2) offense off the field.

“We have to be able to move the ball, get first downs, just to keep the ball out of their hands,” McGee said.  “I think their team is so big they’re good at wearing teams down.  If we can move the chains, that would be key.”

Manitou Springs will have to do so without their senior signal caller Logan Asbury who was injured last Friday.

“We lost our starting quarterback so we have a freshman coming in as our starter,” Bohnert said.  “(Asbury) fractured one of his vertebrae.  He was trying to hurdle a defender and clipped his toe on his helmet and landed on his head.”

Chad Sienknecht, who has shared quarterback duties, will start at quarterback for the Mustangs, working on protecting the ball from the Savages.

“We’ll talk about that every day, how important (protecting the ball) is” McGee said. “They have bought into that, the kids have. It’s something they focus on.”

On the other side of the ball the Mustangs will have to perform just as well.

“They run the ball very well and their line is just huge so we have to be able to tackle well,” McGee said. “Just basic things in football, just to harp on those basic things and hope we are in a good place to make tackles.”

The Mustangs have already done much to make sure they are in a good place this season after starting 0-3,
with their final game a good indicator of how far the team has come.

“(Lamar is) big, they’re fast, they’re a pretty good team” McGee said. “It should be a good challenge for us to
really gauge where we are with one of our best teams in our league.”