Middle Park quarterback Boston Gleich pulled off an amazing touchdown as time expired in his team’s loss to D’Evelyn on Friday night.
Gleich, a senior, took a snap in shotgun with four seconds remaining, stepped up in the pocked to avoid the rush, then scrambled back in it to avoid more defensive pursuit. The then dodged more would-be tacklers as he scrambled to his right and fired a pass from his own 32-yard-line.
Beale Smith, a junior, was there are D’Evelyn’s 38-yard-line to haul in the pass. He sprinted the rest of the way for the score.
LOUISVILLE — No. 7 Monarch and No. 10 Skyline took the field knowing only one top-10 team would stay undefeated.
“You play a top-10 team, you play a team that’s undefeated, it doesn’t matter who they’ve played,” Monarch coach Phil Bravo said. “You can look at Skyline’s record and scrutinize it up and down, but when a team comes in and believes in itself, you better be prepared to play. And this team sure did.
“I would imagine this is a red-letter game for this team.”
The Coyotes rode key defensive plays and five touchdowns from Justin Kiss to beat Skyline 52-42 in a Class 4A Northern League matchup on Thursday.
“I told our guys, give us three stops,” Bravo said. “Give us three stops and we can take this game over. What I didn’t anticipate was them stopping us once. That wasn’t part of the equation. I was proud of our kids, these guys prepare hard and they play hard. That is a good football team right there. They are really, really a tough team.”
With Skyline facing a fourth and goal from the three-yard-line just before halftime, the Falcons elected to go for it. Monarch’s defense made the stop and kept Skyline off the board.
“We knew that whoever got the stop first was going to change the momentum,” Kiss said. “It really kick-started our whole team. We got going, our offense got hyped after it. It was big for our defense to give them some momentum as well.”
The turnover on downs was the first drive of the game that did not end in a touchdown.
Monarch rode that momentum to a quick strike touchdown to start the second half. After Cole Polluconi broke off a 45-yard run to the four-yard-line, Kiss capped the drive with a touchdown run — his third of the night.
The Monarch defense wasn’t done. Jordon Shields recovered the fumble on the 24 after Skyline quarterback Nathan McGregor was stripped on the Falcon’s next drive.
Kiss ran it in again to put Monarch up 35-21.
“It’s definitely a committee, a good committee,” Kiss said on Monarch’s running backs. “All of our backs are good, we know our responsibilities. Obviously, I got the big numbers, but the wing on the other side, he was doing all the work making the holes and creating the blocks. It’s equally their night as well.
“We all put in the work that provides the success for everyone else. We all got the glory there, even if we didn’t get the numbers.”
Skyline took the opening drive down for a touchdown. The Falcons came out swinging with a 35-yard completion from McGregor to Kyle West off of a run/pass option.
McGregor and the Skyline offense drove the field easily for much of the first half as he made the right read time and time again.
(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Then, after converting on a long third down and one from the 10, Skyline punched it in with a handoff to Jeremy Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth broke a tackle on his way to a four-yard touchdown run.
Hollingsworth had four touchdowns in the game.
“When you have Hollingsworth, McGregor and West, that’s a three-headed monster,” Bravo said. “They make it really difficult to find who you want to concentrate on. We wanted to come in and stop the run game to start with. We didn’t achieve that in the first half, but we made some adjustments at halftime and we came out and stopped them in the third quarter.”
Kiss erased bad starting field position after Monarch’s kick returner Alex Matsumoto stepped out of bounds at the 3-yard-line. Kiss took the handoff 55 yards to the Skyline 23, then capped the drive with a 7-yard rushing touchdown.
“Justin Kiss did well, but more importantly, I think our offensive line did well,” Bravo said. “Our O-line, we’re finally getting into a groove, and we’re finally getting into a rhythm with a stable offensive unit. The first four games, we were maneuvering kids in and out to try to find that rhythm. They really clicked tonight, and they had to.”
Facing a fourth-down-and-three from the 19 on the ensuing drive, McGregor kept on the read option down to the 8. McGregor’s run set up Hollingsworth for his second touchdown of the game to put Skyline up 14-7 heading into the second quarter.
Monarch responded quickly with an 18-yard touchdown pass from CJ Schmanski to a wide open Ricky Stimac.
Skyline didn’t let the stalemate last long as West took the middle screen 35 yards for a touchdown, putting the Falcons up 21-14.
And again, Monarch struck back. Kiss ran it in for his second rushing touchdown of the game.
Then, the Coyotes made the stop of the game as the half came to a close.
Monarch rode its defense and Kiss in the backfield to start the season 6-0, but Skyline did not go away easily.
“They got into a catch-up game and started throwing the ball in the fourth quarter, and that’s where we wanted them to be,” Bravo said. “We figured that if they were throwing the ball, we did something well.”
The Falcons came all the way back to make it 49-42, but Monarch recovered the onside kick, and Kiss took the opening play of the drive 53 yards to the 12.
Monarch was able to eat up the clock and add to its lead thanks to a Ty Lanphear field goal.
“That field goal was great,” Bravo said. “That made the difference in the game. I think that thing cleared by maybe two to three yards, but it did it.”
Another defensive stop officially put the game out of reach as McGregor was hit as he threw, and Ben Cole intercepted the ball.
“We couldn’t come in shy in this game,” Kiss said. “It’s a big momentum shift for us, we got a test here tonight. We really showed what we got, and this is going to build our confidence going forward.”
LAKEWOOD — Denver West football was victorious for the first time this season late Thursday afternoon at Trailblazer Stadium in Lakewood.
Jefferson’s Ben Alvear (1) closes in on Denver West QB Ramiro Barrazza. (Dennis Pleuss/Jeffco Athletics)
The Cowboys (1-5, 1-1 in Class 2A Flatirons League) got a 35-16 road and conference victory against Jefferson (0-6, 0-2). Denver West quarterback Ramiro Barrazza rushed for two touchdowns and threw for another in the first half.
The Saints had a 8-7 lead in the first quarter, but Denver West scored a pair of second-quarter touchdowns to take a 21-8 lead into the locker room.
Jefferson is still seeking its first win of the year. The Saints took a forfeit victory over KIPP Denver Collegiate during the 2015 season, but haven’t won a game on the field since 2013 when Jefferson finished with an 8-3 record and qualified for the 2A state tournament.
Luke Louthan, Thaddaeus Dewing and Jonathan Brown are looking to repeat what David Louthan, Austin Dewing and James Sims did not so long ago. All are related. And this year’s trio wants to make state title wins even more of a family affair.
“I’m sure over the dinner table sometimes, their older cousins remind them that they won a state title,” Air Academy coach Epsen Hosoien said. “I don’t think that’s their main driving force, but they’re competitors and athletes and want to play good soccer.”
Air Academy’s 4-1 win over Pikes Peak Athletic Conference foe Lewis-Palmer on Thursday served as another reminder that the program is once again back to contender status. The Kadets (12-0 overall, 4-0 PPAC) are scoring over five goals per game.
They didn’t clear that mark on Thursday, however, as Rangers (3-8, 2-1) keeper Aiden McConnagle kept several Kadet shots out of the net.
Air Academy is just as strong on the defensive side, surrendering just 12 total goals between keepers Thomas Beatty and Sean Redinger.
Unlike the 2014 version of the team, the bulk of the scoring isn’t coming from a single player. Austin Dewing led that squad with 34 goals on the year and was the only Kadet player to score double-digit goals.
Luke Louthan. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
This year, Louthan leads the team with 12 goals – after scoring two in the win over Lewis-Palmer – and Thaddaeus Dewing, Austin’s younger brother, has 10. Kristian Hooker sits right in between them with 11.
“(Austin) had 16 goals his sophomore year so he’s pushing me to get more than him,” Dewing said. “We’re striving to be the best, even though it’s hard to beat what they did.”
The most interesting piece of this version of the family dynamic will be how they deal with losing one another to graduation, one by one.
Brown is the senior of the group and already looking toward graduation is hopes to join the older set of cousins as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. Louthan is in his junior year and Dewing is just a sophomore.
“I’ve already started the process,” Brown said. “I’m trying to follow in their footsteps here at the academy.”
With this being the last year that the three of them will compete together, they wouldn’t mind replicating the accomplishments of what their older siblings/cousins accomplished not so long ago.
And that includes claiming a state soccer title and following it up with a state basketball championship. The Sims/Dewing/Louthan class of 2015 also won a 4A state title for the Kadets on the hardwood. In terms of just bragging rights, if Air Academy claims a soccer title this year, the pressure will be on come basketball season.
“Of course, I always feel like that,” Louthan said. “Winning one in soccer would be great too. Just anything we could get.”
But first thing’s first. Air Academy needs to finish out the regular season, and looks to do it without a loss on the record. With PPAC games remaining against Sand Creek, Cheyenne Mountain and Vista Ridge, the Kadets hope this branch of the family can keep the tradition alive.
Then, it’s on to the playoffs. Anything can happen in postseason play. And for the Kadets and its three cousins, that can mean earning equal bragging rights come the next family reunion.
