Thunderbird sends message it is here for deep 4A football playoff run in win over Northwest Christian

Phoenix Thunderbird made a big impression in its 27-20 4A football win that spoiled Phoenix Northwest Christian’s homecoming before an overflow crowd Friday night.

The Titans (7-2) showed they’re ready for a deep playoff run with Phoenix St. Mary’s left in the regular season.

They start several players both ways but hang their helmet on the stellar play of running back Elijah Little and back/linebacker Tyler Woods.

Both were clutch in helping to hand Northwest (8-1) its first loss of the season. Little ran for three TDs and Woods came up with the game-clinching interception with two minutes to play, after the Crusaders had recovered an onside kick after a touchdown.

Here are some takeaways:

Relentless attack

Thunderbird's defense, with help from a 15-yard Northwest Christian penalty, forced the Crusaders to settle for a 30-yard field goal early in the game. The Titans' offense went three-and-out on their first possession, then fumbled the ball away on their next, before finally getting untracked late in the first quarter.

A big catch by Woods on a nice throw from Andrew Cohill for a 15-yard gain to the Crusaders' 10 on the final play of the opening quarter set up the first of three Little touchdown runs, this one from 4 yards.

As much as the attention is on Thunderbird's pound-and-ground offense, Cohill showed poise and escapability to find Devin Yates for a 15-yard gain, Ryan Kavalami for a 20-yard pickup and Will Clark for a 17-yard gain to open the third quarter, before Little gave the Titans a 17-10 lead with a 13-yard run.

"It's because of our offensive line," coach Matt Nalatte said. "They controlled the line of scrimmage. In the second quarter, we leaned on our running game and that offensive line. They got the job done."

Little racked up more than 100 yards a week after rushing for more than 200 yards and five TDs in a rout of Buckeye.

That win last week gave a glimpse of how tough this Thunderbird team is going to be in the playoffs.

"We're ready to go to the championship," Little said.

Fueled by last year's playoff loss to CDO

Thunderbird's season ended in the 4A quarterfinals last year to Oro Valley Canyon del Oro. The Titans figured they'd have to go through the unbeaten Dorados again this year if they want to win their first title since 2010. That's why Nalatte had them doing 14 sprints to end every conditioning workout in the summer.

When they saw CDO drop out of the Open this week in the AIA playoff rankings and back in 4A, they were excited.

"Our guys wanted CDO," Nalatte said earlier in the week. "That's who eliminated us last year. We kind of new they'd be No. 1 coming into the year. In the summer, when we were doing our conditioning, we would finish with 14 sprints. It was like, 'Hey, this first one, it's for Moon Valley.' We were going down the whole schedule. We get to the playoffs, you kind of make it up. That 14th sprint was always CDO."

The Titans will need to pump the brakes a little on their over-excitement in games to get there. There were several times that they helped Northwest Christian on drives with late hits and personal fouls. In the end, it didn't cost them the game.

"Our guys play really hard," Nalatte said. "We had a couple of guys who had a little trouble turning the switch off."

Woods has felt all season this team was capable of being a title defender, even after getting smacked early by a strong 5A team in Glendale Apollo.

"I think we knew we had this ability for a long time," Woods said. "I think we showed that tonight. We were able to make enough plays to win the game."

Northwest Christian will find wins with loss

Senior quarterback Evan Tarasenko, a May move-in from Maui, showed off a tremendous arm. He threw two TD passes -- a 52-yard deep strike to Cole Muscari that gave the Crusaders a 10-7 lead in the second quarter, and a 5-yard pass to Matt Hornburg with 2:23 left that cut Thunderbird's lead to 27-20.

But he was getting harrassed much of the night by defenders and was intercepted twice.

Northwest Christian coach David Inness felt his team left a couple of touchdowns on the scoreboard early, but feels this game will end up helping. Along with next week's Senior Night against rival and unbeaten Yuma Catholic in the regular-season finale.

"We've got a lot of fight in us," Inness said. "We never talked about winning all 14. Hats off to them. I thought we played darn tough defensively. They didn't rush for 360.

"I never once talked about winning them all. Should we have gotten this one? Yeah. We didn't get it. We didn't get manhandled. We just didn't execute when we needed to."

To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert atrichard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Thunderbird sends message it is here for a deep 4A playoff run