The future was on display Friday night in Tucson and it looked promising. Daniel Sainz picked up his first career victory as a head coach after Catalina Foothills came back to defeat Pueblo 34-16, one week after Jacob Allen won his first game as a head coach when his Warriors defeated Rincon/University 44-8. There might be a night in the distant future when these two are battling each other for their 100th victory but we can say we were there for the beginning and that’s incredible.

Sainz played for legendary head coach Jeff Scurran at Santa Rita and he spent the last eight years learning the coaching end under Scott McKee at Sahuaro. Sainz is an important branch off of that coaching tree and Allen comes in with an equally impressive pedigree after learning the game under legendary head coach Matt Johnson for a combined 11 years at Ironwood Ridge and Mountain View. Even better, Allen was recommended for the Pueblo job by another legend in Curly Santa Cruz. Those are all heavy hitters.

For Pueblo, moving the ball against the Falcons Friday night was not an issue early on until the team reached a first-and-goal situation and then things got a little tough. In all, the team came up empty of three trips before cashing on one later in the game but a strong defense kept things even with Catalina Foothills limited to only 23 yards of offense in the first quarter. That all changed when Connor Smith hit Carlos Carrillo from 40 yards out to give the Falcons a 7-0 lead with 10:22 left in the half.

“We were close, we just weren't fully firing on all cylinders,” Allen explained. “A couple a drops that changed things. But I’m very proud of our boys, they fought, they saw a team that I think is, is a playoff caliber team tonight.”

As it turned out, that was the last big pass given up by Pueblo with the Falcons held to 49 yards through the air but the team made up for it on the ground in the second half. Pueblo was stopped short of the goal line once again but the Warrior defense came up big with a safety with Anthony Carpenter pulling Marcel Dixon down five yards behind the line of scrimmage for the score.

The safety seemed to ignite the Warriors and Javier Noriega responded by scoring on a 1-yard run to make it 8-7 Pueblo and his 2-point conversion extended the Warrior margin to 10-7 with 2:04 in the half. The Falcons were unable to run out the clock and Pueblo struck again before the half with Diego Ramirez connecting with Miguel Moreira from 5 yards out to make it 16-7 at the half with the attempt failing.

The second half saw the emergence of senior RB Yasuo Bean and he took over quickly on a 40-yard dash to cut the Warrior lead down to 16-14 with 10:09 left in the third. Bean finished with 247 yards rushing on 30 carries with four touch downs and he appeared almost unstoppable.

“I think our boys fought hard tonight,” Allen added. “They battled until the clock hits zeros, I'm going to take this one square on the chin. I need to make better halftime adjustments and we couldn't stop their power. We knew what they were doing. We didn't have the right answer for it.”

As Allen mentioned earlier, dropped passes became an increasingly difficult hurdle for the Warriors to overcome with at least four drives ended on drops that would have extended possessions in the second half and Bean took full advantage.

“We just understood what we had to do. Like, we always stress that just because we're down in the first half, it doesn't mean that we can't come back,” Bean said. “So we made those little adjustments like blocking and getting the right things on point and we worked as a team. That's what it was. I got those four TDs because we had everyone work as a whole.”

The Warrior offense relied heavily on the arm of Ramirez and he finished with 17 of 42 for 238 yards and a TD with Jesus Zazueta pulling in 74 yards, Andre Blanton coming down with 69 and Moreira recording 52 receiving yards with a TD. Noriega had 56 yards rushing on 13 attempts.

Pueblo will host Rio Rico (0-2) next week and Arcadia (1-2) a week after that. The Warriors have an excellent shot at being 3-1 before Safford (4-0) comes to town the week of the release of the first power-rankings of the year.

Catalina Foothills will travel to Canyon del Oro (0-3) next before taking a week off but that first victory feels just right.

“Oh, it feels good to get your first win, the weight off the shoulders. I mean, we've been, we've been grinding really hard, but kids were really hungry for a win,” Sainz explained. “We started off a rough half and I got to see them kind of get through the adversity big time for the program.”

The Dorados might be 0-3 but it’s a big team full of talent.

“You know, we just go and do it again,” Sainz added. “We have to fix a lot of the little things. It's like that old ship, two degrees off all of a sudden you're in the wrong country. So we got to keep building and building every time and fix those little mistakes.”

Noriega also collected an interception for Pueblo while Logan Rivera recovered a fumble for Catalina Foothills as did Samuel Delgado. Charlie Keables and picked up interceptions for the Falcons.