LAKEWOOD — Chatfield first-year football coach Kris Rosholt got a long awaited cold water bucket shower Friday night at Jeffco Stadium.
After starting the season 0-4, Chatfield defeated rival Dakota Ridge 43-30 in a high-scoring affair.
“It feels really good,” Rosholt said moments before his players gave coach the refreshing shower. “The boys have played really well all season. We just haven’t been able to put four quarters together. We thought we should have won a couple of those, but we just didn’t earn it. Tonight we finally put it together.”
Chatfield (1-4 record) found its offensive scoring punch after putting up just 45 points in four games. Junior quarterback Jake Jones rushed for a pair of touchdowns and threw three first-half touchdown passes to sophomore Brock Narva.
“Getting our player makers the ball,” Rosholt said of Narva’s three touchdown catches. “Everyone knows Brock Narva is a great player. He is one of those special players and we are going to get him the ball anyway we can.”
Jones did pulled off several Houdini acts to escape Dakota Ridge’s rushers time-after-time in the rivalry game. More often than not Jones found Narva after eluding Eagle defenders.
“Jake Jones looked like Kyler Murray out there tonight,” Dakota Ridge coach Ron Woitalewicz said. “He kept his eyes up the field and made plays.”
Jones had two first-half rushing touchdowns himself with scoring runs of 9 and 1 yard in the second quarter. He did most of his damage through the air finding Narva for scores of 11, 41 and 35 yards in the first half.
The final first half touchdown by the duo came with 30 seconds left before halftime. Jones dumped a pass off to Narva who did the rest with a remarkable run breaking several tackles on the 35-yard touchdown catch.
“I told Jake before the play that I though I’d be open because they sat the two linebackers back,” Narva said of his third touchdown catch. “I was screaming his name the whole play and he tossed it out to me. Drew Rohlman had a great block on it too.”
The score gave the Chargers a commanding 33-17 lead at halftime.
Jones tossed his fourth touchdown off the night with a 4-yard pass to Rohlman to open up a 40-17 lead.
Dakota Ridge senior running back Noah Triplett had a pair of short rushing touchdowns and an 8-yard touchdown catch from Eagles’ quarterback Blake Palladino. However, three first-half turnovers by Dakota Ridge led directly to three Chatfield touchdowns.
“We’ll rebound,” Woitalewicz said after the Eagles dropped to 2-3 on the season.
Chatfield and Dakota Ridge have already faced adversity a little over a month into the season.
It hasn’t been an easy start for last year’s 4A state champions that made the jump to 5A for the current 2-year cycle. Chatfield suffered defeats against No. 1 Cherry Creek, No. 7 ThunderRidge and Cherokee Trail in non-league games, along with dropping its out-of-state versus Port St. Lucie (FL).
“We took the monkey off our back,” Narva said after the win. “It’s a big relief to get a win. We know we can do it. We just need to execute.”
The Chargers begin 5A Jeffco League play next week with a 4 p.m. game Friday against Arvada West (2-3) at Jeffco Stadium. Chatfield could get some traction in conference play before ending the regular season against No. 3 Ralston Valley and No. 2 Columbine.
The top 24 teams in the RPI rankings qualify for the 5A state tournament that begins in November.
“Just building off of this game,” Rosholt said of the Chargers moving into league play next week. “It’s a new offense, new defense and new coaching staff. It takes time. Today was a good step forward.”
Dakota Ridge didn’t get off to a stellar start to its season either. The Eagles dropped their opener against (4A) No. 6 Pueblo West and suffered a rough 35-7 loss to rival Columbine in a lightning shortened game where only the first half was played.
It’s actually the first time in three season that Dakota Ridge has lost a regular season game. The Eagles had a 16-game regular season winning streak dating back to the 2019 season.
“We’ve got seniors who haven’t lost a regular-season game in two years,” Woitalewicz said. “This is some adversity and learning how to overcome adversity.”
Dakota Ridge — No. 7 in the CHSAANow.com 4A rankings this week — finishes its non-league schedule against No. 2 Broomfield at 7:30 p.m. next Friday night back at Jeffco Stadium.
“It doesn’t get any easier facing the No. 2 ranked (4A) team in the state,” Woitalewicz said of hosting Broomfield next week. “It’s homecoming so hopefully that will help. We’ll go back to work and fix mistakes. Rise to the challenge because they are a great football team. We have our work cutout for us.”