Adam Beadle is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication student assigned to cover Williams Field High School for AZPreps365.com.

Williams Field coach Steve Brody invited his team to school to watch film and walk through some plays last Friday afternoon, in hopes of avoiding coming out flat in its 6A non-region matchup against Chandler Tuesday night.

While the Black Hawks led at halftime, too many “mental errors” allowed Chandler to score 20-unanswered points in the second half and take down Williams Field, 27-14.

“I mean, (mental errors) is basically what it comes down to,” Brody said.

Brody attributed a dropped punt on the team’s own 26-yard line during its first drive of the second half as the defining moment in the game that allowed Chandler (3-3) to climb back.

The Wolves capitalized on the opportunity, scoring a touchdown, but they missed the extra point, which allowed Williams Field (2-4) to hold on to a 14-13 lead. 

However, more errors occurred on the Black Hawks’ next offensive drive, with freshman quarterback Berkeley Drake throwing a jump ball deep downfield that Chandler senior safety Jordyn Moreland snatched out of the air.

Brody took responsibility for that mistake.

“(Drake) didn't hear my check, so she threw it to wherever she wanted to,” Brody said. “The play is designed to where she threw it, but I wanted to go to the outside, so that's not on her.”

Defensive coordinator Brandon Brody also attributed the “mental errors” as the reason the Black Hawks weren’t able to replicate the same level of success defensively in the second half that they had in the first, which included forcing Chandler to two consecutive 3-and-outs that were tied to both of Williams Field’s touchdowns.

“I guess at the end of the day, it's just the mental errors we got to lock in,” Brandon Brody said. “We're a very driven team when we're up, and we got to keep fighting, and I saw a lot of fight out of this team, but when you make one blown coverage, you got to pick each other up, and I don't know if we saw that at the end, so we just got to lock in together and have a better response on each play.”

Despite the struggles on defense, one player on the offensive side of the ball continued to shine: Freshman wide receiver Tatum King.

King finished the game with 12 receptions for 134 yards and a touchdown, plus a new nickname.

After making an impressive spin move to pick up a first down on the last play of the third quarter, several of her teammates started brainstorming names for the talented newcomer. King’s teammates landed on one that she said she liked in particular: “Twisty Tatum.”

“That made me laugh on the field,” King said.

Those kinds of moments, King said, drive her.

“The love for their sport and how far I want to go in it just really keeps me motivated to make those plays and just to just the motivation, really, and the people who I know are here to support me after those big plays,” she said.

Steve Brody said Williams Field will have to turn things around quickly as it travels to play Skyline Wednesday night.

“We'll talk about it (after the game) and just say, ‘Hey, we just got to lock in,’” Brody said. “‘We've got to eliminate those mistakes. You're up seven points coming into the half. We can't make those mistakes.’ So we'll fix that up tomorrow and come back, hopefully all guns fire.”