After Mancos's win over Plateau Valley last week, head coach Adam Priestly spoke highly of the Dove Creek Bulldogs, saying that his Bluejays "want to start to be that caliber of team."

After suffering a 52-0 home loss to the Bulldogs on Friday, Oct. 11, it is clear that the Bluejays still have a long ways to go.

On offense, the Bluejays got off to a rough start, fumbling twice on their opening possession before beingforced to punt.

In fact, with the exception of a few strong runs by sophomore Drew Morgan and senior Steven Rohweder, the Bluejays' offense was stagnant throughout the game.

"Our line needs work, and our backs need a little work," said Morgan. "The first half, we kind of had some mistakes and shot ourselves in the foot."

On defense, the Bluejays were equally poor, yielding five rushing touchdowns to the Bulldogs and 224 yards rushing to Dove Creek star running back Chance Randolph.

Highlighting Randolph's performance was a 28-yard fourth quarter run in which the junior broke at least eight Bluejays' tackles before crossing the goal line.

"Overall, they are hard runners," said Bluejays' senior Ty Koppenhafer of the Bulldogs' running backs. "We have played teams where you can knock the soup out of them and they go down. We had to work on wrapping up this game, and we've never had to do that before."

Cleary disappointed by his team's overall effort, Koppenhafer added, "Everyone has to do their job, and I don't think that we did that very well tonight."

Although the Bluejays' loss dropped the team to 2-4 on the season, Bluejays' players stressed that they have no intention of giving up.

"We're hoping to keep that fire in our belly," said Morgan. "We have to keep on chucking."