Basic cruises to easy win, looks ahead to showdown with Del Sol

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009 | 12:48 a.m.

The Basic High football team made a statement on Friday night by opening Southeast Division play with a convincing 60-34 victory against visiting Coronado at Don Taylor Stadium.

While Basic’s 47-point output in the first half is sure to send a message to future league opponents, the style in which the Wolves were victorious could potentially open more eyes.

The Wolves typically pass first out of their spread offense attack. On this night, however, coach Jeff Cahill called several running plays early in the game to set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Sure, the hard running of backs Edward Villaros, Quinn Richardson and Rayshawn Gulley helped create openings in Coronado’s secondary for quarterback Tyler Dobbins to pass for 231 yards and two touchdowns in one half of action.

But, more importantly, the physical ground attack was partially by design for Basic’s opponent next Friday — Del Sol. The Dragons physically dominated Basic in two games last fall, including in the Sunrise semifinal when Del Sol’s Derek Eamon ran for 412 yards and five touchdowns.

Cahill knows Del Sol will have the same philosophy this fall — run the ball and try to be more physical.

“We are just going to have to man up and stop them,” Cahill said.

Basic (4-0) has more than its share of momentum after dominating Coronado (2-1).

Dobbins accounted for three of Basic’s first four touchdowns to give the Wolves a comfortable 26-7 lead with 10:25 to play in the second quarter. He scored on touchdown runs of 1 and 6 yards and threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to senior Omar Valenzuela.

“Our game plan was to play smash-mouth football and to pound the ball up the field,” Dobbins said.

Villaros, who also had a touchdown run in the first quarter, and Richardson each added short touchdown runs in the second quarter and Dobbins closed the half with a 51-yard scoring strike to Valenzuela 34 seconds before halftime.

Coronado only needed three plays to score on its first series — a 15-yard touchdown run from quarterback Ryan Newton — and Devon Riley kept the score respectable by returning a kickoff 89 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter and catching a 49-yard touchdown pass late.

But the Cougars could not match Basic’s aggression.

“That was an old-fashioned butt kicking,” Coronado coach Todd Stratton said. “We didn’t execute and just got beat. Basic is a very good football team. They came ready to play.”

Gully had a pair of fourth quarter touchdown runs to put an exclamation point on the victory. He finished with 82 yards on nine carries, including scoring runs of 39 and 5 yards.

Valenzuela, a three-year member of Basic’s varsity team, said the victory was one of the most impressive he’s been part of.

Now, the Wolves need to duplicate the performance against Del Sol.

“We just have to keep working hard and take one snap at a time,” said Valenzuela, who had four catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns.

Ray Brewer can be reached at 990-2662 or [email protected].