No. 3 Vista Ridge football tops No. 7 Palmer Ridge in an offensive shootout
COLORADO SPRINGS — An old fashioned shootout involving a quarterback named Elway. It must be football season in Colorado.
Elway Tubbs threw for 283 yards and three touchdowns Friday night as CHSAANow.com’s No. 3-ranked Vista Ridge Wolves beat the No. Palmer Ridge Bears 40-28 to win the Battle for the Ridge Trophy and prove once again the Wolves are a major force in the Class 4A scene.
“It was a lot of fun, there was a lot of offense,” Tubbs said. “It comes down to whose defense can make the most stops and our defense did tonight and it helped us out.”
But from the start, something just wasn’t right with the Wolves offense. Wide receiver Marquez Trunnell caught a quick, 1-yard pass from Tubbs but the ball was ripped out of his hands and recovered by the Bears.
Palmer Ridge couldn’t do anything with it and gave the ball back to Vista Ridge on downs. But Wolves seemed out of sync on offense and struggled to get anything going, which was clearly frustrating for Tubbs.
“They came out in a different defense,” Wolves coach Jerimi Calip said. “But that’s to be expected when you’re having that kind of success, teams don’t want you to know what they’re doing so they change stuff up.”
It would actually be the Bears who struck first as they worked their way into the red zone and receiver Trevor Grob took a wide receiver sweep six yards for a touchdown.
Any dreams that the Bears had of keeping Tubbs in check and the Wolves out of the end zone ended on the next drove. Like his namesake, Tubbs marched his team down the field. First he did it with his legs on a 39-yard run that came as a result of a broken play.
Then he connected with receiver Breon Michel for a 24-yard touchdown pass. The Wolves missed the extra point, but it seemed that the offense was finally settling in.
“When things started clicking it seemed like our offense was getting more chances,” Tubbs said.
But the Bears weren’t done. Not even by a long shot. Quarterback Isaiah Sanders went 8-11 for 106 yards in the second quarter, but it was spectacular touchdown grabs by George Silvanic that gave Palmer Ridge momentum and a 21-18 halftime lead.
That’s when the fun started.
On the first Vista Ridge play in the second half, Quinones exploded for a 41-yard run which was followed up the very next play with a 17-yard touchdown run by Emmanuel Walker to give them the lead at 24-21.
“(I knew we were good) when we scored on the run from our guy, E-Man,” Tubbs said. “(On the two-point conversion) we threw a fade to the back of the end zone and it was a tight window to fit that in. I was feeling it then. That’s when I knew we were clicking.”
The developing theme of the game was that everything could change in an instant. Sanders proved that to be true as he connected with Bailey Rosenstrauch for a 68-yard touchdown pass to put the Bears back on top 28-24.
And the game of one-upmanship between Sanders and Tubbs would only continue.
Tubbs found Marquez Trunnell for a 62-yard touchdown pass with 53 seconds left in the third quarter.
The Wolves defense finally held Sanders and the Bears to force a punt, allowing Tubbs the opportunity to extend the lead.
It was an opportunity that he happily accepted, connecting a 44-yard pass to TreJohn Wright. Looking to stay with the hot hand, Elway found Trunnell on 4th and goal from the 10 for another touchdown. After adding the two-point conversion, the Wolves increased their lead to the biggest of the night at 40-28, which one hold on for the final.
“It was a great opportunity to go against a great team,” Sanders said. “Coach was telling us it was going to be a heavyweight fight and they won this one.”
The Bears will digest this win and get back to the drawing board, hoping to get another opportunity at Vista Ridge in the playoffs.
“That’s a very good football team,” Bears coach Tom Pulford said. “In situations like this, adversity creates perseverance and perseverance helps us refine our character and character provides us with hope.”
The Wolves now turn to next week and a matchup with 4A’s top-ranked Pine Creek Eagles. Calip knows that his team cannot start slow against the defending state champs and that they may not get a chance to recover from mistakes that they make.
“Here’s the deal, it’ll be a different ball game,” Calip said. “They’re not a spread team, they’re going to come out and run the ball, and do it well. We’re just going to come out and see if we can stop them.”
The Eagles won last year’s matchup 41-7, a score that Calip and the Wolves don’t plan on seeing next week.
