Guthrie pulls off road win over Duncan

Guthrie (7-4) was the only team in Class 5A to go on the road and pick up a win in the opening round of the Oklahoma high school football play-off's. The Jays pulled away with a 20-12 win to advance to the second round against Tulsa East Central.

The Cardinals handled Pryor with ease by winning 31-7. Guthrie travels to the home field of East Central next Friday night. The Jays have collected play-off wins over the Cardinals in 2002 and 2007 en route to their state championships.

The past history in the Guthrie/Duncan series has been one sided that leans toward Duncan.

The Demons had won 12 of 13 meetings between the two programs, including three wins in the play-off's (1978, 1991, and 1993), but the Jays never once trailed in the 2009 meeting.

Duncan concludes their season with back-to-back losses to El Reno and Guthrie, but finishes with a respectable 8-3 record and now have hosted home play-off games in 2005, 2007, and 2009. Before 2005, Duncan had not hosted a play-off game since 1997 for the program that has won six state championships.

Guthrie took the opening kick-off and drove 85-yards in over 4:00 to take a 7-0 lead when freshmen quarterback Bryan Dutton found pay dirt from two-yards out.

The BlueJays are now 7-1 when scoring first this season.

On the next possession for Duncan, they were forced to punt and punted it to senior Dustin Bohanan, where he fumbled it but picked up, and went 51-yards down the BlueJay sideline to give Guthrie a 13-0 lead with 3:57 left to play in the opening quarter as the extra point was no good.

The punt return was the second of the season for Guthrie and Bohanan with his first coming three weeks ago against Capitol Hill.

The Jays had taken the home crowd out of the game by this point, but Duncan responded in the second quarter with two scores of their own to pull the momentum back to the home side wearing red.

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The first Demon score resulted in a 44-yard run by sophomore quarterback Brandon Wilson, who fumbled the ball into the end zone, but Dane Steil recovered it for Duncan's first score. Duncan failed on the extra point to keep the score at 13-6.

Duncan caught a break on the next Guthrie possession when a Dutton pass went off of senior wide receiver Zach Olsen and into the arms of a Duncan's safety who returned it to all the way to the Jays 20-yard line.

Two plays later, fullback Devante Harris scored on a 13-yard run to pull within one,13-12 with 3:08 until half, but the Demons head coach Jim Hollaway elected to go for the 2-point conversion instead of the potential game tying point after and failed to get into the end zone.

Duncan had one more opportunity to take the lead just before the half, but a 37-yard field goal was wide left.

The Demons entered the game as the best rushing offense in 5A with 254-yards a game, but were held to just 96-yards rushing, including negative three in the second half., Guthrie ranks as the second best in 5A in stopping the run.

The game's only second half score was late in the third quarter when Dutton located senior Corbin Crockett for a 4-yard score to give the Jays a 20-12 lead with 2:26 left to play and capped off a six play 37-yard drive.

Guthrie's defense continued to hold their own in the second half with key third and fourth down stops.

Duncan had one final shot at getting into the end zone when they took over on the Jays 41-yard line on what was their final offensive possession. The Demons went through the air and completed a few passes, but quickly found themselves facing a fourth down and four play.

Wilson rolled out to his right and tried to find his twin brother, Bradley Wilson, but the pass fell to the ground giving the Jays the ball back with over 2:00 to play at their own 20-yard line.

As expected, Guthrie melted as much time off the clock as possible on each play, but Duncan was using their time-outs wisely and the Jays found themselves with a fourth down and long play with :08 left in the game.

After a time-out, junior Kentrell Brothers was in punt formation and was to take time off the clock and worse case scenario take a safety to prevent Duncan from either scoring, or earning great field position, but instead Brothers took off running with the ball at the 5-yard line and broke a tackle with :03 on the clock and ended up with a 65-yard run as time expired and the game concluded.

Guthrie is now 13-5 overall in the play-off's under head coach Rafe Watkins and is 6-2 in first round games.

Other second round games include: McAlester at El Reno, Carl Albert at Bishop Kelley, and Bixby at Shawnee. The Jays/Cardinals winner will play the Shawnee/Bixby winner on a neutral site on the West side of the state in one of the two state semi-final games.