Voted upon by coaches and media members around the state. New voters can sign up by emailing rcasey@chsaa.org. These rankings have no bearing on postseason seeding.
Lakewood quarterback Casey Nicholls, pictured during a game against Fairview earlier this season.
Eighth-ranked Arapahoe was poised to escape with another slim win. Only, no one told Lakewood.
The Tigers’ Anthony Brown returned a punt 48 yards to Arapahoe’s 7-yard-line with under two minutes to play. Quarterback Casey Nicholls scored what turned out to be the winning touchdown on a sneak two plays later in a 46-39 upset.
Arapahoe needed overtime to beat Mullen last week. This week, the Warriors rallied from a 32-23 halftime deficit to take a 39-32 lead. But Lakewood dialed up a wide receiver pass to Tevin Lucas on third-and-17 to tie the game at 39 with 6:50 to play. The Tigers forced Arapahoe to punt on the ensuing drive, setting up Brown’s big return.
Lakewood improves to 2-5 this season, while Arapahoe falls to 5-2.
Elsewhere in 5A, No. 10 Cherokee Trail shook off some first-half rust to rally and beat Grandview 21-7. The Cougars trailed 7-0 at the break.
“We’re happy with how we played in second half,”coach Monte Thelen told ColoradoPreps.com’s Built Ford Tough Scoreboard Show on Friday night. “Beating Grandview at any time is a great achievement for us, so we feel good about our performance, especially in the second half tonight.”
Cameron Smith rushed 22 times for 132 yards and two scores for Cherokee Trail. Quarterback Aric Johnson was 9-of-18 with 121 yards passing.
Cherokee Trail turned the ball over three times in the first half, and also had a touchdown called back due to a penalty.
“We’re really happy with how our defense played the entire game to be honest with you, because we put them in a number of negative situations in the first half,” Thelen said. “They were able to come through. We just felt like if we could calm down and play our game in the second half that we could definitely get back into the game. We were fortunate to be able to do that.”
In 4A, No. 6 Falcon rebounded from a tough loss last week to Pine Creek to come back and top Ponderosa, 24-14. The Falcons scored the game’s final 24 points.
“What was interesting is that it was like a reciprocal of our game last week with Pine Creek,” co-head coach Brian Green told the Scoreboard Show. “We were up at half and Pine Creek came storming back. We kind of followed their same formula to victory this week.
“It was really just coming out and making plays. We made some good defensive plays that put us in position to score and kind of capture the momentum early in the third quarter and never looked back after that.”
Running back Kalen Ballage carried the ball 21 times for 68 yards and a touchdown. Justin Barron also had a rushing score, but the game turned on Dylan Cutkomp’s 51-yard interception return for a touchdown.
“That one put us on top, and we just carried that wave of momentum to the finish line,” Green said.
Eighth-ranked Mead stayed unbeaten in the 3A ranks with a 41-14 win over Northridge. Quarterback Griffin Nelson was 19-of-28 for 195 yards and two scores, while the Mavericks also racked up 415 yards and four scores on the ground.
“I was really proud of the fact that we rushed the ball really well tonight,” coach Jason Klatt told the Scoreboard Show. “And Griffin was just a real leader tonight. He hung in there and threw a bunch of key completions that kept drives alive and it was just a great all-around win.”
Mead is now 6-0, but isn’t worried about any outside pressures.
“That’s been a big question that we didn’t really know how that was going to go, but we have a senior-led group that is very resilient,” Klatt said. “They’ve bought into what we’re telling them and they are beginning to be mentally tough to where we don’t listen to that stuff and we’re not concerned about outside stuff and Wild Card points and all that stuff. The only thing that we can control is our attitude and our effort. That’s what we’re doing right now.”
Holy Family, ranked No. 6 in 3A, needed a stop of a two-point conversion to season a 20-19 win at Erie.
“They had a great drive, they put together a couple of plays, and they went for the two-point conversion,” coach Mike Gabriel told the Scoreboard Show. “It came down to I think about the 1-inch line, but we kept them out of the end zone.”
Holy Family is 3-0 since a crushing 45-14 loss to Silver Creek on Sept. 20.
“I think Silver Creek kind of revealed some stuff to us as a staff that we needed to work harder in practice and challenge the kids more in practice and just get after it a little more,” Gabriel said. “We’ve changed things, and the kids have responded. We’re starting to see the results.”
In all, Week 7 has belonged to the ranked teams. Ranked teams are 43-4 against unranked opponents across all classifications through Friday’s games.
Palisade is now the No. 1 team in Class 3A. (Betsy McLaughlin/Palisade Tribune)
Palisade edged then-No. 1 Rifle last Friday after rallying from a 27-14 halftime deficit. Tuesday, Palisade is on top of CHSAANow.com’s Class 3A football poll.
The Bulldogs received all 13 first-place votes in moving up from No. 2 taking over at No. 1. Rifle dropped to third. Unbeaten Coronado, which has the most wins in the state at 7-0, is second.
The 3A ranking added Roosevelt (No. 10) this week.
In the 5A poll, Fairview has moved up to No. 2 from No. 3.
The Knights (5-0) are 5A’s lone remaining unbeaten team, and got one first-place vote. Valor Christian got the other 23 and remained atop the ranking.
Regis Jesuit is third this week, and is followed by No. 4 ThunderRidge and No. 5 Cherry Creek.
Montrose, idle last week, remained in 4A’s No. 1 spot. Monarch moved up to No. 2, and Standley Lake is No. 3 this week. That ranking added Pueblo South at No. 8 and Durango at No. 10.
Voted upon by coaches and media members around the state. New voters can sign up by emailing rcasey@chsaa.org. These rankings have no bearing on postseason seeding.
The big showdown down South took a turn at halftime.
Trailing second-ranked Falcon 13-8, No. 8 Pine Creek scored the game’s final 21 points en route to a 29-13 win in Class 4A football.
“We made some adjustments at halftime and really came out and played well,” Pine Creek coach Todd Miller told ColoradoPreps.com’s Built Ford Tough Scoreboard Show on Friday night. “We got them off the field, our offense controlled the second half, and that was able to keep (Falcon star Kalen Ballage) from carrying the ball. We’ve got a chance of winning when he’s not carrying it.”
Ballage did finish the game with 196 yards and two scores.
“We kind of took a punch in our mouth in the first half — playing in about 40 mile-per-hour winds — and we were able to adjust,” Miller told the Scoreboard Show. “Our kids just controlled the line of scrimmage and Scott Savage and James Fisher had space and they found creases, and we were able to get up on people. And Lavanson Coffey, our blocking fullback, just had a great game and we just kind of went back to old-fashioned football, running between the tackles and getting chunks of yardage and able to put some points on the board.”
Pine Creek is now 3-0 against 4A competition. The Eagles opened 1-2 against 5A foes Fountain-Fort Carson, Lakewood and Columbine.
“Going through Columbine, going through Lakewood and Fountain-Fort Carson prepared us for this (game against Falcon),” Miller said. “We had a couple of tough losses early, but we went through some hard practices and hard losses against tough, physical teams and they pay dividends on nights like tonight.”
The other monster game on Friday night ended with No. 2 Palisade nipping No. 1 Rifle in 3A, 28-27. The Bulldogs’ Levi Hoaglund found John Goff with 17 seconds remaining to secure the win.
“We had a group of guys that just persevered and hung with it,” Palisade coach Joe Ramunno told the Scoreboard Show.
Palisade trailed 27-14 at halftime.
“That’s just kind of the nature of kids that we have here at Palisade,” Ramunno said. “It’s been that way for many, many years — you can go back to the 50s. They’re tough guys that just kind of hang in there. And we got out-played tonight. I really felt like we were outplayed for almost three-and-a-half quarters. Very fortunate to come out with a win, and they just have that mentality: there’s a lot of fight in that dog.”
At the 5A level, it was another week of destruction. No. 2 Chatfield lost to unranked Columbine in a wild game, No. 8 Cherry Creek topped No. 4 Cherokee Trail and Overland upset No. 7 Grandview, beating the Wolves for the first time in a very long time. Since 2004, Overland was 0-9 against Grandview and was outscored 103-336 over that span.
Mullen very nearly took down No. 10 Arapahoe, but the Warriors survived in overtime, 27-21. Arapahoe was up 21-0 at halftime.
When the dust cleared, it left Fairview as 5A’s lone remaining unbeaten team. The Knights (5-0) topped Arvada West 41-21 on Friday.
Elsewhere, it was No. 8 Paonia beating No. 10 Meeker in 1A despite six turnovers.
“I hope it was six. I don’t know, I kind of lost count,” Paonia coach Brent McRae told the Scoreboard show. “We just kind of huddled them up and said, ‘Here’s the deal, boys: this happens. This happens in life. And you can pick it up and finish and keep believing and keep fighting or you can lay down.’ They fought for each other.”
Also, 2A’s eighth-ranked Florence rebounded from last week’s loss to Manitou Springs to beat No. 5 Lamar.
“They knew what they had to do, what they had to clean up, and they had a pretty good week of practice and took a lot of pride in cleaning up what we needed to clean up,” Florence coach Jeremy Nix told the Scoreboard Show.
Voted upon by coaches and media members around the state. New voters can sign up by emailing rcasey@chsaa.org. These rankings have no bearing on postseason seeding.
Voted upon by coaches and media members around the state. New voters can sign up by emailing rcasey@chsaa.org. These rankings have no bearing on postseason seeding.
The weekend’s turmoil has bled over into CHSAANow.com’s football polls.
Though, when a total of 17 ranked teams lose in a week — including the No. 1s in classes 5A, 4A and 3A — it’s not hard to see change coming. So, yes, there are new teams atop 5A (Valor Christian), 4A (Montrose) and 3A (Rifle).
But the change didn’t only affect the top. In 5A, where three of the top four teams lost last week, that meant Chatfield, Fairview, Cherokee Trail and Regis Jesuit all made big jumps.
Valor Christian leads the 5A poll for the second time this season. The Eagles are 4-1, but unbeaten against Colorado competition this season, and received 21 of the 24 first-place votes.
Chatfield moved up to No. 2 from No. 5, Fairview went from No. 7 to No. 3 and Cherokee Trail moved into fourth from sixth. Regis Jesuit, which last week knocked off then-No. 1 ThunderRidge, went from No. 9 to No. 5.
ThunderRidge dropped to sixth, and is followed by Grandview and Cherry Creek.
The 5A poll added two new teams this week: No. 9 Pomona and No. 10 Arapahoe.
Falcon is No. 2 this week, and Monarch dropped to No. 3. Loveland stayed at No. 4, Montbello moved up one place to round out the top-5.
Pueblo Centennial (No. 9) and Longmont (No. 10) are 4A’s newcomers this week.
Rifle takes over atop the 3A ranking following Silver Creek’s loss to Frederick. New to 3A this week are Mead (No. 7) and D’Evelyn (No. 10).
Brush continued to lead 2A’s poll, which added Bennett at No. 10.
Likewise, Buena Vista remained atop in 1A. That poll added Paonia (No. 8) and Jefferson (No. 9). Jefferson’s addition is especially noteworthy because the Saints were a combined 3-85 from 2004-12.
