More photos. (Ray Chen/ArrayPhoto.com)
AURORA — Last week, Valor Christian suffered its first in-state loss since 2012. With a share of the Class 5A Centennial League championship on the line, it was hard to imagine that they could be the victim of back-to-back losses to in-state opponents — something that hadn’t happened since 2010.
But the No. 1-ranked Grandview Wolves (9-0 overall, 5-0 Centennial) had other ideas. A 24-21 win over the Eagles (6-3, 3-2) Friday night concluded an undefeated season and sole possession of the league title.
“We’ve been in a lot of tight games and this league is tough,” Wolves coach John Schultz said. “We gathered ourselves at halftime and with 24 mintues to play went out and played a physical game.”
Early in the contest, it seemed like the Eagles were almost timid when they took the field. Grandview received the ball to start the game and marched right down the field in eight plays and finding their way into the end zone on the legs of running back Chukwuma Obinnah.
More photos. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
Dylan McCaffrey and the Valor offense didn’t fare any better as McCaffrey was picked on their first possession of the game and they went three and out on the second. The Wolves capitalized and once again hit paydirt on a short run by Obinnah to go up 14-0 at the end of the first quarter.
“I thought we withstood their pressure a few times and we were able to answer,” Valor coach Rod Sherman said. “We have to take the good and improve on where we are right now.”
Needing something to happen, McCaffrey finally fell back into his comfort zone and began to seek out his favorite target in Eric Lee Jr. McCaffrey and Lee connected on a 36-yard pass that gave the Eagles the ball at the Wolves’ 15-yard line. Two plays later they connected again to give Valor the ball at the three. A quick handoff to Stone Watson put the Eagles on the board.
Feeling some momentum after finally getting on the scoreboard, the Valor defense began to show some signs of life. They let the Wolves drive down to midfield, but hung on to force a punt.
The Wolves responded in kind but disaster struck for them on the Valor punt attempt. First, a flag was thrown for roughing the kicker, but it didn’t matter as Ben Marshall fumbled the catch and Valor recovered the ball on their own 36-yard line. McCaffrey wasted no time and fired a 64-yard strike to Ben Waters to tie the game 14.
As much as the second quarter went Valor’s way, the second half was the exact opposite. In their first two offensive possessions of the second half, the Eagles fumbled the ball back to Grandview. The Wolves took advantage of both turnovers, getting Obinnah’s third touchdown run off the first and an Aiden Pirrin field goal on the second. Going into the fourth quarter, the Eagles found themselves down 24-14 and on the verge of back-to-back losses.
“I just felt like I needed to be there for my team and do my job for my team,” Obinnah said. “All I did was do my job and thankfully the coaches called some great plays and allowed us to succeed.”
The final 12 minutes saw a valiant effort from the Eagles, but the 10-point hole proved to be too much to overcome. With just over four minutes remaining, McCaffrey faked out the entire stadium on an option play and was able to run the ball inside the five-yard line. Watson then punched the ball in to pull the Eagles to within three.
More photos. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
But the Wolves’ offense was able to continue to pound the ball on the ground and run out the clock, giving Grandview the 24-21 win.
Both teams now await the select of the 5A state bracket, which will be released Sunday. But for Schultz and his team, they are simply going to enjoy the undefeated run they’ve had, knowing they can overcome adversity and hang with the best teams in the state.
“We’ve been in a lot of tough games this season,” Obinnah said. “We are not strangers to adversity. We know how to pull out the hard wins and how to keep our momentum up.”
More photos. (Ray Chen/ArrayPhoto.com)