Complete Box Score and Play by Play
Mill Valley did something on Friday night that hasn’t happened since 2017 and that’s hand Derby a loss.
The defending 5A state champions controlled all facets of the game as they downed the defending 6A champion Panthers, 45-14, behind quarterback Cooper Marsh, who ran for three touchdowns and added one through the air.
Marsh completed 12-of-15 passes for 174 yards as he and Kendrick Jones were in sync all night. It helped that Marsh (104 yards) and Quin Wittenauer (102 yards) controlled the running game to open up the air attack.
“The boys up front were working their tails off and getting a good push,” Marsh said of why the passing game was clicking. “I tried to get, since we were quarantined, with the receivers once or twice a week and come up here and throw routes and crisp up since we weren’t doing stuff as a team. I knew I could get a group of guys here to come get better.”
Derby opened the game with a 21-yard run but were quickly shut down as they turned the ball over on downs – something it did five times on the evening.
Mill Valley would turn the first two Derby punts into touchdown drives. Derby responded on the next drive with a screen play on 3rd and 15 that was close to ending the drive, but Dylan Edwards was able to outrun the defense for an 85-yard score. It was the lone blemish on the night for Mill Valley, which played an otherwise clean game.
The coaches agreed to a running clock in the fourth quarter, which saw Derby score a touchdown with 10 seconds remaining when the backups were in.
Jaguars coach Joel Applebee was extremely pleased with his team’s effort. He said with it being Week 1, he never knows what to expect, but thought his players had great practices leading up to the game and that the summer went as well as it could have been, all things considered.
“When we were off this spring and we couldn’t see them in person, they showed up that first day in June when we could get with them and it was like they didn’t skip a beat,” Applebee said. “They were bigger, faster, stronger – they were in shape and that showed tonight.”
Mill Valley will remain the No. 1 team in 5A and there’s a very good chance they’ll be the No. 1 team in the state by the time the next polls come out, but Applebee and the Jaguars are taking a cautious approach to the remainder of the year, despite all the promise they showed on Friday night.
“In the situation we’re in, they can’t take anything for granted,” Applebee said. “They know every day there’s a possibility something could be taken away. We have a great senior class and I have no doubt their minds will be moving on to next week right after film tomorrow. We’ll hit Monday and it’s De Soto week.”
