Del Sol doesn’t pass up shot at victory

Rancho came into Friday night’s game with a high-powered offense featuring the area’s top passing game.

But Del Sol proved you can score plenty of points with the old-fashioned running game.

The Dragons completed just two passes but ran for 411 yards on the way to a 72-47 road win in the Sunrise Region quarterfinals.

“If you can’t run the ball, you pretty much can’t set anything up on offense,” Del Sol running back Derek Eamon said. “We run the ball to hopefully set up the pass, but when we’re running the ball, we don’t really stop.

“Rancho doesn’t run the ball at all, and they can’t stop it, either.”

The Rams (5-6) certainly couldn’t stop Eamon. The 220-pound bruiser rushed for 285 yards and five touchdowns on 30 carries.

“The kid’s a stud,” Del Sol coach Preston Goroff said. “There’s not many like him. He’s a great running back, he’s a complete football player, and he’s a great kid.”

Del Sol (9-2) plays at Basic (8-3) on Friday in the Sunrise semifinals. Basic advanced with a 34-21 win over Valley on Friday.

There was plenty of back and forth in a game that didn’t feature a punt, but Eamon’s fourth TD run swung the momentum back to the Dragons.

Rancho had just scored on a 69-yard pass from James Cammack to Zach Foulkrod to cut Del Sol’s lead to 43-35 with
9:02 to play.

But on the first play of the ensuing possession, Eamon broke a tackle, turned the corner and took the ball 52 yards for a touchdown.

“Their morale was up from the long passes, but once we’d break off a long run, their heads would go straight down, and they would come out for the next play not ready,” Eamon said.

Rancho came back to drive 71 yards for a score on the next possession, with Cammack hitting Dijon Holman with an
11-yard TD pass to cut the lead to 51-41 with 5:23 to go.

Rancho appeared to convert the 2-point conversion, but the play was called back because of a penalty, and the next attempt failed, leaving it a two-possession game.

Del Sol went 52 yards on the ensuing possession, capped by a 15-yard touchdown run by Ernest Hall to make it 58-41 with 2:42 to go.

The Dragons turned two Rancho turnovers into touchdowns in the next 30 seconds to put the game out of reach.

The Rams continued to show off a high-octane passing game. Cammack completed 31 of 49 passes for 444 yards and six touchdowns.

But he was intercepted four times, with two returned for TDs. Cammack had been intercepted just seven times coming into Friday’s game.

But the key was the Del Sol offense, which kept Rancho on its heels all night.

“Our offense never really lost track,” Goroff said. “We were able to put a lot of points on the board and put them in situations where they maybe had to push things a little more than they wanted to. And it worked out for us.”