By Brittany Bowyer
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SCOTTSDALE — The Desert Mountain Wolves picked up a solid win in girls flag football on Thursday night, defeating Arcadia 30-0 at home. Despite a couple errors by the Wolves, it wsas an overall solid performance.

“We feel good,” Desert Mountain Coach Julius Drelick said. “Arcadia’s definitely an improving team. I think that their new coach is really turning things around there. So that was a very competitive game, as you saw, from the get go.”

Early on in the game, Desert Mountain was driving towards the red zone when a pass from junior Caroline Workman was tipped and intercepted by junior Meadow Nelson. Arcadia took over possessions, but were unable to do anything with it.

Later on in the first quarter, the Wolves attempted a field goal but it was no good, keeping the game tied at 0 with 1:42 remaining.

It wouldn’t be until the second quarter when the Wolves would get on the board. On a punt return, Workman fielded the punt before tossing the ball back to sophomore Sasha Drelick, who ran the ball in for a touchdown. The kick from junior Keira Eisenberg was good, giving the Wolves a 7-0 lead with 7:42 remaining in the first half.

Things remained close, but with :30 seconds left on the clock, Arcadia was picked off by sophomore Lea Kieu, who set the Wolves up with great field position. With just :03 seconds left, Workman was able to find sophomore Journey Phillips in the end zone for a touchdown. Eisenberg’s kick was again good, making it 14-0 going into the half.

“[Arcadia’s] rush was more of a problem than we expected, so I give them a lot of credit for that,” Coach Drelick said.

Coming back out of the half, it remained anybody’s game. Both teams spent the third quarter battling back and forth, and by the start of the fourth quarter, it was still 14-0.

As time was starting to dwindle, Desert Mountain began to run away with things. Arcadia was picked off by junior Elizabeth Egan, setting up Desert Mountain for its next touchdown. Workman was able to find Drelick once again for six, and Eisenberg’s kick was good, extending the lead to 21-0 with 8:40 remaining in the game.

“[Sasha] is terrific,” Coach Drelick said. “She brings a ton of speed to the game, and great knowledge. She’s a really smart kid, and we can do a lot of things with her because she can run, she can throw, she plays great defense. She really can do a little bit of everything. She’s a great player.”

More trouble ensued for Arcadia on the following drive, as a botched snap in the end zone would result in a safety. With just under seven minutes left to play, Desert Mountain was leading 23-0.

Desert Mountain was able to put them away officially with another touchdown from Workman to Drelick, as Drelick slashed through defenders to reach the end zone once again. Eisenberg’s kick was good, making it 30-0.

“The score doesn’t reflect it, but that was not an easy game for us,” Coach Drelick said. “I’m glad that we escaped with a win.”

Senior Matilda Lister, who plays as a center on offense, did a great job of providing protection for Workman all night. While her work on the field isn’t always tangible on the stat sheet, it was clear that she was doing what she needed to do to help Desert Mountain find success.

“On offense, a really major part of the center position is making space for our slants, for our runs, and even for our quarterback runs,” Lister said. “My job as a center is to clear out the linebacker, and any inside linebackers, and make sure that there’s space for that to happen. Without that, we basically can’t do anything in the middle. On top of that, I think it’s really important as offensive players that even if we’re not the main target, we’re still running our receivers hard and we’re getting defenders to follow us, and on top of that we’re blocking. When our receivers catch the ball, we’ve got to be blocking.”

For Coach Drelick, there were some frustrations despite the win. The team struggled with a number of dropped passes on the night, which is something he says they need to work on.

“I wish it was more of a fluke,” Coach Drelick said. “We’ve had that pop up from time to time this year. It is an issue that we need to work on, so we’ll definitely be focusing on that. Some of the people dropping passes are people that we really rely on. We really need them to make those catches.”

“I think in terms of improving our catching ability, one thing we’ve noticed is we really get ahead of ourselves and we start thinking about our next steps before the ball is in our hands,” Lister said. “In reality, it’s all just back to the basics and continuing to practice the basics, and continuing to get that ball in every single play.”

However, Coach Drelick was extemely pleased with his team’s defensive performance against Arcadia.

“Our defense really is our calling card,” Coach Drelick said. “I think we’re one of the best in the state. We feel very proud about what they’re able to accomplish, and just attribute that to the energy and effort that the girls put out there on the field.”

“It’s watching film,” Lister said. “I watched every single game that hey had available, and I knew when it was a run, I knew when it was a quarterback run and I knew when it was a block or dump off. Watching that film allowed me to have so many TFL’s in the first quarter.”

Now sitting at 4-2, the Wolves are preparing to take on Horizon next week on Tuesday in what Coach Drelick feels should be a very telling game.

“We are very excited for our game against Horizon,” Lister said. “I like to call them frienemies. They’re one of our neighboring schools, they’re very similar in level to us. They started a team one year after we did, and they’re very good. We’re very much prepared, we’ve been working really hard, we’ll be watching a lot of film, and I think we’re ready to make a statement on Tuesday.”

Brittany Bowyer is a Report for America corps member, covering sports for Independent Newsmedia in Arizona. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.