(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
PARKER — If an injury to Sterling Ostdahl isn’t going to slow down Ponderosa, it’s hard to imagine what will.
Ostdahl went down with a leg injury late in the first half of the Mustangs’ 56-17 win over Rampart on Friday.
But with junior Dylan Hollowell in there, the second-ranked team in the Class 4A CHSAANow.com football rankings looked just as good, if not better.
“Our backup is really good and he’s just a junior,” Ponderosa coach Jaron Cohen said. “We give those guys reps and he knows how to run our system. Dylan stepped up and made some really good throws.”
In three completions, Hollowell marched the Ponderosa (4-0 overall) 59 yards to score its fourth touchdown of the game just as time expired in the first half.
Ostdahl had amassed 103 passing yards before leaving the field. But more importantly, he ran for 87 yards, including the Mustangs first touchdown of the game.
“We were a little slow to start,” Ostdahl said. “We just have to make things happen more often and it was a little bit of a slow start but we got it going.”
In order to keep pace, Rampart (2-2) had to use an offensive attack that was dependent on the efficiency of two quarterbacks.
Keion Cross handled things on the ground while sophomore Kevin Witcher was tasked with moving the ball through the air.
“They have some pretty good backs, some talented linemen and some good schemes,” Cohen said. “They had us outnumbered a few times so we had to go to the drawing board at halftime and figure some things out.”
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Witcher set up the Rams’ lone scoring drive of the first half with a 24-yard completion to Jared Behm. Cross then broke for a long run and finished off the drive by running it into the end zone from two yards out.
On the ensuing kick-off, Jevon Glover took it to the house to regain momentum and a 14-point lead for the Mustangs.
“I think that it brought the momentum back to us,” Glover said. “It brought up the hype.”
On the final drive of the half, Ostdahl went down with his injury and Hollowell found Kade Ongna for a 12-yard touchdown pass to make it a 28-7 game.
The Mustangs started the second half just as strong as they ended the first. They went with a heavy offensive dose of Glover who got into the end zone again, this time on a 38-yard run. He finished with 109 rushing yards and a touchdown to go with his kick return touchdown.
The Rams added a touchdown in the third quarter on a 61-yard pass from Witcher to Behm. But it was too little, too late.
“One of the things we’ve struggled with is consistency,” Rampart coach Rob Royer said. “There are times when we see the flashes of the team we can be and there are times when consistency snake bites us.”
Ponderosa will look to add a fifth-straight win to the season next week when it hosts Pueblo Centennial. Rampart has a bye before opening up league play against Littleton.