RENO - The drought is over.
Thanks to a heads-up play by Jesus Castaneda and an 11-yard TD run by Taryn Aguilera with 5 seconds left in the game, Dayton High snapped a four-game losing streak with a 20-14 win over Wooster at JoeMac Sellers Field on Friday night.
Dayton improved to 2-4 and Wooster is 1-5.
"I's good," Dayton coach Rob Turner said. "We absolutely had to win this game. It was a lot tougher than we anticipated. They ran the ball better than we expected. After what South Tahoe did last week, we expected to see them throwing to No. 4 (J.J. Harloff) and No. 5 all day."
In all reality, the Dust Devils are probably already eliminated from post-season competition, but it certainly would be nice to end on a strong note.
"I'd like to win these last few games," Aguilera. "It gives us something for and build on gong into next season."
It didn't look good for the Dust Devils after a bad exchange from center on fourth-and-1 from the Wooster 8-yard line killed a drive with 6:21 to go.
Wooster, thanks to two third-down conversions and a fourth-down conversion moved the ball to the Dayton 46. On first down, Wooster QB Josh Carnemolla went back to pass and was wrapped up by a Dayton defender. As Carnemolla was falling back, Castaneda alertly ripped the ball the ball away back at the Wooster 48.
"It was huge," Turner said. "He's a sophomore and he's plays really hard. He does those things. I've seen him take the ball away from running backs."
"It just kind of happened," Castaneda said. "I saw him falling back and I took the opportunity to take the ball."
From there it was a steady dose of Aguilera.
Aguilera carried for 13 yards down to the Wooster 33. Two straight runs by Jesse May moved the ball to the 14. Two straight carries by Aguilera moved the ball to the 4. Aguilera scored on the next play, but Dayton, as it has all season, committed a holding penalty, pushing the ball back to the 13.
Quarterback Jake Turner scrambled down to the 11 and then slightly overthrew Josh Koch in the end zone. On the next play, Aguilera took a toss from Turner and went wide, and after picking up a block inside the 5, jumped into the end zone with 5 seconds left in the game, snapping a 14-all tie.
"The first time we ran that play, their guys were crashing hard inside," Aguilera said. "I got outside, got the block and jumped over (my teammate) and into the end zone."
After receiving the kickoff, Wooster tried a couple of laterals on the return before Dayton stopped the play.
Dayton took a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter on a Tyler Ortiz run with approximately 2 minutes left in the quarter. The 2-point conversion failed.
The Dust Devils were back in the end zone approximately three minutes later when Payton Morena intercepted a pass at the Wooster 42 and returned it to the 38. The Colts were hit with a facemask penalty, pushing the ball to the 23.
It took six plays, but the Dust Devils were able to convert the takeaway into eight points, as Jake Turner tossed an 8-yard scoring pass to Jesse May. Aguilera ran for the PAT to make it 14-0 with 11:04 left in the half.
The Colts took the ensuing kickoff and marched 74 yards in 10 plays with Harloff catching a 26-yard scoring pass from Carnemolla for the score. Marlon Lopez missed the PAT, leaving the Colts on the short end of a 14-6 score with 6:17 left in the half.
Wooster took the second-half kick and drove 72 yards for the score with Foa Safaro scoring on a 6-yard run. Brian Mullins caught a 2-point PAT pass, tying the game at 14.
The key play in the drive came when Dayton was called for pass interference which kept the drive alive and wiped out the interception.
Dayton failed on two trips into the red zone before Castaneda set up the game-winning score with his heads-up play.
