2025 High School Football

Marana extends winning streak to six games with win over Casa Grande

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Marana sophomore running back Jeffrey Smith III during his career high 230-yard rushing night in the Tigers’ 51-27 win over Casa Grande (Lexie Fegan/ AllSportsTucson)

The Marana Tigers are on a six-game winning streak, including a 51-27 victory over their 5A Sonoran foe Casa Grande Cougars on Friday night.

Marana’s only loss was a 20-18 battle against 6A Salpointe in the opening game of the year, and that game went down to the very last play of the game.

Since then, all the Tigers have done is win.

“Starting from, I want to say from the beginning, they played really good defense versus Salpointe. so they’ve just been playing really well week in and week out and I’m proud of them. They give the offense a chance,” Marana coach Phillip Steward said about his defense.

Friday night’s game had a different feel due to the Marana School District being on fall break. No band and a sparse crowd made Tiger Stadium uncharacteristically quiet, but that didn’t stop the team from playing hard in all phases for those in attendance.

Marana (6-1, 4-0 5A Sonoran) got on the board first when quarterback Colten Meyer found tight end Remy McKinnon cutting through the middle for a touchdown, putting the Tigers up 7-0 with 8:40 left in the first half.

A little more than three minutes later, running back Jeffrey Smith III ran up the middle and muscled his way into the end zone to give Marana a 14-0 lead.

Casa Grande’s first touchdown of the game came off of a Cameron Armstrong return on the ensuing kickoff. With 5:16 left in the first quarter, the Tigers led 14-7.

Marana went up 21-7 when Meyer rolled out to his left and connected with Jeremiah Harris on fourth down.

In the second quarter, Casa Grande’s defense forced an intentional grounding in the end zone giving the Cougars two points on a safety.

A 61-yard run by Smith set up a Lucas Delgado field goal putting Marana up 24-9 at the end of the first half.

Delgado ended the night six for seven on extra-points in addition to his field goal. His only missed extra point was on a snapper-to-holder muff.

At the 7:01 mark in the third quarter, Casa Grande tight end Aveon Williams, a North Carolina commit, fought his way in for a Cougars touchdown. The two-point conversion try was unsuccessful.

Marana got the touchdown back when Harris found the edge of the end zone to put the Tigers up 31-15 with 1:49 left in the third quarter.

Casa Grande (3-4, 1-2) wouldn’t go away easily as the offense marched down the field ending in a Ben Matecki-to-Armstrong touchdown, bringing the Cougars within 10-points of the Tigers.

At the end of the third quarter, Marana led Casa Grande 31-21.

As the fourth quarter started, the Marana scoreboard went on the fritz. It came back for a bit, but eventually the scoreboard was out completely and the referees took over time keeping duties for the remainder of the game.

The Tigers took a 38-21 lead when Meyer threw a short pass over the middle to Sean Roebuck, who did the rest of the work, sprinting in for a touchdown.

Next offensive possession, Jaxsun Sharp secured the Meyer pass in the end zone to put Marana up 44-21.

Marana’s final touchdown of the game came at the five-minute mark when Smith ran in for his second touchdown of the game giving the Tigers a 51-21 lead.

Smith had a career night at running back with 12 carries for an unofficial 230 yards and two touchdowns.

“I think he’s my first running back since I’ve been here to rush over 200-yards in one game. Probably could have had 300 if we kept running,” Steward said on Smith’s career night

“He ran hard. I keep telling him the more I keep feeding him, (he needs to) keep running, because in the playoffs we’ll have to be able to run the ball. So right now we are working on our run game. We are doing some stuff up front … the last few weeks I feel like we’ve been running the ball really, really well and tonight he just exploded.”

“My line locked in. I was following my line. They were opening those gaps up for me and I just made it happen. They did their job and I did my part,” Smith added.

On room for improvement, Smith said, “There’s always room for improvement. My dad raised me to never be satisfied. Always know there is room for improvement and you just want to be at the top of the food chain. Every season you are going to see me out there.”

Marana’s defense played tough all night long, putting pressure on Matecki, breaking up passes and eventually getting an interception by AJ Rocha as the Cougars were in the red zone.

“I’m proud of him” Steward said on Rocha’s interceptions. “He did well right there stealing that possession right there because they was driving right there.”

On the defense’s chemistry, defensive end Hayden Utley said, “A lot of chemistry between us and it’s always a competition between who can put the most pressure and whose going to put the most work in. We all love each other, Walter Evans and Greg Webb … We are just really tied together. We’ve been doing this like three years.”

Defensive end Justin Elder added “Just a lot of talking to each other like calming the whole defense down and with the D-line we all know our responsibility just getting at the quarterback and we all do it perfectly.”

How long have Utley and Elder known each other?

“Since Kindergarten.” Elder said.

They mentioned that they have played football together for 12 to 13 years

Casa Grande would add a final touchdown as time was running out in the game off of a Matecki-to-Armstrong touchdown pass.

It will be Senior Night for Marana on Friday with the Tigers hosting Tucson (4-3, 3-1). They play at rival Mountain View in two weeks.

Casa Grande will host the Buena Colts (4-3, 2-1) on Friday.

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