Football roundup: No. 8 Pine Creek storms back to beat No. 2 Falcon

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.