Joe McHugh is a student journalist at the Walter Cronkite school at Arizona State University assigned to cover Perry High School football.

On Friday, the sixth-seeded Desert Vista Thunder upset the third-seeded Perry Pumas at home, 70-63 in a wild back and forth game.

The Pumas were coming off back-to-back wins and had momentum to start off the game, as they forced the Thunder to a three and out. Then, they put together a huge drive, with a 58-yard pass from quarterback Chubba Purdy to wide receiver Cade Berger. Three plays later, Purdy would connect with Brock Lane for the score, setting the tone nicely for the Pumas.

“It was going to be a run play or a throw,” Purdy said, referring to a run-pass option, where the quarterback can choose to hand the ball off or throw to a receiver, based on how the defense reacts. “I ran it, and Brock came down. I just threw it over them. Once we were up 7-0 I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”

After the Perry touchdown, the Thunder would roar back with 14 unanswered points, scoring on the first drive by almost exclusively using wide receiver Elijah Ervin. He could not be stopped, as he had four receptions for 78 yards and a touchdown on just one drive.

The Pumas lost the lead after the Thunder capitalized on a fumble while the Pumas were in the red zone. The Thunder quarterback, Parker Navarro, was running all over the Pumas for the whole game, gaining more than 100 rushing yards and throwing for over 300 yards as well. This early drive was capped off with a five-yard touchdown by running back Tyson Grubbs.

After that drive, the Pumas would lose their star linebacker, Jackson Ford, who looked to have a shoulder injury, and was left in a sling for the rest of the game.

The two offenses went back and forth, as the Pumas would score in just two plays on the next drive with an explosive catch and run by Cade Berger for 77 yards.

“Sometimes [Desert Vista] had broken down-plays,” Purdy said. “They would leave kids wide open and I would just hit them. The other times, we had new plays in there, and they worked out.”

The Thunder would pull ahead once again with another touchdown to Elijah Ervin, this time on an 18-yarder, after a great drive including a crucial fourth-down conversion.

The Pumas were forced to punt, and this drive without a score would set them down for what seemed like the whole game as the Thunder stayed ahead and scored another touchdown after getting the ball back coming from running back Taron Thomas with a 57-yard run for the score.

Both defenses were essentially nonexistent, with multiple one or two play drives that would end up in long scores. Other drives would include failure to stop the other team on third and fourth downs.

The offenses, on the other hand, would continue to score as after the Thunder were up 28-14 the Pumas would inch closer, this time with a 68-yard catch from receiver Bryce Holdridge, making the score 28-21.

This small seven-point deficit would be a point of struggle for the Pumas, as the Thunder would almost always seem to put up points whenever they had the ball. This trend would prove effective until the score was 56-42, as both offenses would score on all but one drive from either team.

In the start of the fourth quarter, the Pumas put up a solid drive. The Pumas converted a crucial fourth down with a 27-yard catch by Berger. From that spark, the Pumas finished off the drive with a one-yard run from running back Nathaniel Miles, bringing the score to 56-49.

After this Coach Preston Jones would leave it all on the line as he would call an onside kick, where the Pumas would recover and capitalize with a touchdown on a run by Purdy.

The Pumas then stuffed the Thunder on a four and out. Perry then went down and took the lead in two plays, on a catch from senior receiver Jorden Young, putting the Pumas ahead for the first time since the first quarter, by a score of 63-56.

The Thunder would not waste any time though, as they would rebuttal on the next offensive play, with a 63-yard touchdown to Elijah Ervin, tying the score at 63 with 4:36 seconds left.

The Thunder would take a page out of Jones’ book, as they went for an onside kick and recovered it. They then drove down and chewed up all the clock, with Navarro scoring a touchdown with just 19 seconds left.

The Pumas tried to pull off a miracle play with time expiring, but it failed, finish the game at 70-63. Still, their coach believes they will remember more than just the final score. 

“We came over adversity a lot of different times,” Jones said. ”Self-inflicted adversity, some just life adversity, but they never quit. They never stopped. They never gave up.”