GameNight Breakdown: DV football comes out flat in season-opening loss

For the second year in a row, Desert Vista football brought the weight of expectations to its season opener.

But this year, they said, it wasn't going to be a distraction. This year, they said, was different.

But this year was no different.

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• Click here to view the photo slideshow of DV's season opener

The Thunder came into its season opener at Gilbert very flat, and the scoreboard at the end of the night reflected it, with the Tigers ultimately owning a 28-7 advantage in downing DV for the second-consecutive season opener.

"We didn't play very well," said DV coach Dan Hinds. "All the way across the board, there are a lot of things we've got to fix and I'm confident we'll get that done."

Things weren't right from the get-go.

On its first possession after a Gilbert punt, the DV offense quickly went three-and-out.

Meanwhile, Gilbert, using a triple option attack and the motivation of playing for injured teammate Beau Harris, who was airlifted out of the stadium with a serious head injury in the first quarter, did as it pleased -- especially right up the middle.

Fullback Trey Fulton's 15-yard touchdown opened the scoring with five minutes to go in the first quarter, and DV had no answer.

The Tigers then went up 14-0, and in trotted DV quarterback Cody Sokol, a junior who took a handful of snaps last season but didn't throw a pass, in place of starter Cole Pembroke.

Sokol led the offense on an 80-yard scoring drive capped by Devon Kennard's 11-yard rumble of a touchdown, but Gilbert answered, scoring on a 77-yard pass just before the half.

It was 21-7, and Desert Vista was entirely flat heading to the locker room, having failed to convert a single third down chance.

Not much changed as the second half opened, at least offensively.

After Pembroke replaced Sokol on the team's second drive -- Hinds said after the game that the plan was to rotate the duo throughout the night -- the Thunder made it down to the Tigers' 23-yard-line. Pembroke delivered a strike to junior Ryne Rezac, who was open in the end zone, but Rezac's feet got tangled with a Tiger defender and the pass fell innocently to the ground.

Pembroke's pass hit a referee the next play, and then Alec Hsu missed a 40-yard field goal attempt.

Nothing -- at all -- was going DV's way on this night.

On the ensuing Tiger drive, DV safety Jake van Raaphorst picked off Brandon Bialkowski's pass, setting the offense up at its own 49-yard-line. That offense, led this time by Sokol, proceeded to march down deep inside Gilbert territory -- before it stalled inside the 5-yard-line on a failed fourth down attempt with nine minutes to play.

Still, the defense gave its offense one last shot, when Flemister scooped up a fumble at midfield and gave DV the ball at its 43.

But that drive, too, failed, when Pembroke's pass slipped through wideout Casey Bolena's hands and was picked off. After Gilbert's Fulton added another touchdown to make it 28-7, DV's final drive also ended in an interception.

"We had a little trouble blocking," Sokol said afterward, "and just executing basically everything. We just didn't get to job done. It's just one of those nights. We've got to bounce back, though."

In the offense's first work under new coordinator Don Rezac, the Thunder racked up 243 total yards, but just 78 through the air.

"Tonight, we didn't complete passes," Rezac said. "We had a lot of breakdowns -- a lot of breakdowns that we have to get corrected. We're a good football team. We're better than what we looked like tonight, for sure."

Now, after all the expectations and all the hype -- which included a No. 12 national ranking by Rivals.com -- Desert Vista finds itself in the exact same spot as it was a year ago: 0-1.

"This is not how we wanted to start our season, but the bottom line is we've got a lot of work to do," Hinds said. "It's very obvious that we're not where we need to be to be the caliber football team that we know we can be. We've got a ton of work to do."