BANGS – The Bangs Dragons kept their undefeated record intact with a 39-15 triumph over the Hawley Bearcats in Friday night’s pre-district finale at Memorial Stadium.

For Bangs (4-0), whose Week 4 game against Hamilton was canceled due to COVID concerns, it was business as usual with a performance similar to the previous three victories to begin the third season of head coach Kyle Maxfield’s tenure.

“I was a little worried,” Maxfield said in regard to how the Dragons would play following an unexpected week off, “but we kind of picked up where we left off. We were missing a couple of starters but Hawley was too, but it really limited them on offense.”

The Dragons amassed 461 yards of total offense with a balanced attack that featured 238 passing yards and 223 rushing yards, while turning over the ball just once.

Ethan Sanchez was held to 95 yards rushing but still scored four touchdowns. Meanwhile, quarterback Ethan Cortez chipped in 158 yards on the ground and scored twice while also completing 10 of 13 passes for 238 yards. Damion Santillanes contributed 88 yards rushing while leading receivers were Brayton Wedeman with five catches for 100 yards, Trevor Bowers with three grabs covering 105 yards and Logan Massey caught two passes for 33 yards.

“It was like the coming out party for Ethan Cortez,” Maxfield said. “We were able to throw the ball around to different receivers and take advantage of our weapons all over the field, we just have to figure out ways to get them the ball. When you have a horse like Sanchez in the backfield, all eyes are on him, so that opens up some other things for us.”

Defensively, Bangs forced four turnovers and limited Hawley (3-2) to 312 total yards – 172 through the air and 140 on the ground.

“The first half they moved the ball, they had a couple of drives going, but turnovers were big for us,” Maxfield said. “We created some fumbles, in fact one of them we recovered on our own 1 yard line with them going into score and that really changed the momentum for us. It was another bend but don’t break night. The only big plays we gave up while the game was still up for grabs were two fade passes that were just dimes they just dropped on their receiver. I was really proud of how we stopped their run game.”

Bangs took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter on runs of 13 yards by Cortez and 7 yards by Sanchez. After Hawley closed the gap to 14-7, Sanchez scored twice more on runs of 12 and 23 yards late in the second period to boost the Dragon advantage to 26-7 at halftime. The Dragons then tacked on two more scores in the third period – on runs of 1 yard by Sanchez and 61 yards by Cortez – to stretch the lead to 39-7.

The Dragons have a week off before opening District 2-3A Division II action on Oct. 9 at Grape Creek (1-4), which suffered a 36-0 loss to Early Friday. Bangs knocked off Early, 28-0, in the season opener for both squads.

“We’re banged up a little bit and have to get some guys back healthy,” Maxfield said. “We’re really proud of how we played against some good teams in pre-district but everybody is going in 0-0 now. We have to hit the reset button and get better during this open week in a lot of areas. We have some tough opponents in district and it doesn’t get any easier for us going forward.”