(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
DENVER — Facing third-and-forever, A.J. Thompson heard a voice in his head. It belonged to his coach.
Stay calm, it said. Stay poised.
Thompson dropped back on third down and 43 from his own 48-yard-line. His No. 9 Montbello Warriors were tied at 24 with No. 2 Denver South, and less than three minutes remained in regulation time.
He scanned his receivers, and saw no opening. So Thompson pulled the ball down, cut through the mass of bodies at the line, and took off. He dodged a defender at South’s 30, then cut to the sideline to his right. He was gone.
Fifty-two yards later: Touchdown, Montbello. Game, Montbello.
“Forcing the pass wasn’t going to help anything,” Thompson said afterward. “I just watch quarterbacks, and the great ones make plays, no matter what. You can’t settle for one style.”
The 31-24 victory on Saturday at Evie Dennis Sports Complex was Montbello’s first over South since 2005. The Rebels had won the three previous meetings by a combined score of 135-9.
“They beat us two years in a row — embarrassed us, not just beat us, but embarrassed us,” said Thompson, a senior who finished with three total touchdowns. “We came in here, and we told ourselves it wasn’t going to happen again, especially on our own turf.”
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Montbello (4-0) jumped all over South (3-1) in the first half and opened a 17-0 lead with touchdowns separated by 21 seconds in the second quarter. Thompson scored on a 10-yard run with 8:59 remaining in the half, and Montbello recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff. Two plays later, Thompson eluded the rush in the pocket and found Jante Gadson for a 20-yard passing score.
South was stunned, but battled back to cut things to 17-9 on a field goal and Zach Lindsay’s 18-yard run with 3:49 remaining before the half.
Montbello answered. The Warriors marched right down and Jarrell Nettles had a 1-yard plunge that made it 24-9 at the break.
During that break, the Rebels corrected some mistakes — namely nine penalties for 85 yards — and started to claw its way back. In the third quarter, a long drive was capped by a 1-yard sneak from quarterback Tyson Purifoy. That made it 24-16.
Following a Montbello punt, another long drive from South was finished off by a second Purifoy sneak. A nice play-call, which sent Shun Johnson on a flat route to the right side of the end zone for a two-point conversion, tied the game at 24. At that point, 7:12 remained, and South was in complete command.
Montbello’s final drive started from its 23-yard-line. Nettles’ steady running helped reverse the momentum, and then Thompson found Giovanni Torres for a big 32-yard reception. A personal foul on the Rebels moved the ball deep into South territory.
However, two sacks and two delay-of-game flags quickly brought up third-and-43 from Montbello’s 48. Things were dire.
“We were breaking apart, to be honest,” Thompson said. “But, as a quarterback, my coach (assistant Stanley Richardson) just tells me all the time just to be a leader.”
Thompson’s scramble gave his team the 31-24 lead.
“We’ve been trying to tell everybody for the last two years: we think we have the best quarterback around, and nobody’s giving him offers or anything,” said Montbello coach John Trahan. “Hopefully today, they see what type of talent he has, not only with his arm, but with his legs, and he thinks the game through.”
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Denver South did drive down to Montbello’s 16, and had two shots at the end zone, but turned the ball over on downs.
“They know how to play tight games, they’ve been there, they have big linemen, all the things, and they know how to win a close game,” Trahan said of South. “Our kids grew up a lot today, and they hung in there.”
Montbello has now matched its win total from all of last season, when the Warriors were 4-6. The program, which was 3-26 from 2009-11, is in search of its first playoff appearance since 2008.
Saturday, the Warriors got their first real test of the 2013 season. Even with the 3-0 start, Montbello’s opponents were a combined 1-10 and the Warriors had outscored those foes 140-33. Montbello’s next three games are against Wheat Ridge, Standley Lake and Monarch — three teams all ranked in CHSAANow.com’s 4A top-10.
“One thing we said even before we left our school today: I said, ‘I hope that we’re in a tight game, because we need to build some character with the rest of the schedule we have the rest of the year,’ ” Trahan said.
“We’ve been blowing teams out and winning by big margins, but you learn how to win in a dogfight game. We knew South was going to come out extremely hard in the third quarter and we talked about that. We had the character to endure that, and then bounce back. Great thing we had A.J. Thompson to make that play.”
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)