No. 2 Fort Morgan football grinds out tough win over No. 9 Mead to remain unbeaten

Morgan Dzak/CHSAANow.com

LONGMONT — Fort Morgan was up by six points with less than three minutes left in regulation when running back Tate Kembel fumbled the football and Mead’s Trace Lindemann recovered it. The unbeaten Mustangs had a tough time with the Mavericks defense all night, but this was a critical play at a dangerous time.

But Fort Morgan junior stud Trey McBride wasn’t having it, and made a huge stop on defense, forcing Mead to give the ball up after fourth down.

There were three lead changes and plenty of physical and clutch plays in the monster top-10 Class 3A matchup between No. 2-ranked Fort Morgan and No. 9 Mead. But the Mustangs held strong and came out on top 20-14 Friday night and remain undefeated at 5-0.

“Hats off to Mead,” Fort Morgan football head coach Harrison Chisum said. “Coach Klatt and his staff do an outstanding job with their program and it’s a very well coached program. We had to dig deep and we came out on top and made big plays when we needed to. That was a very good football team that we beat, with tough, physical defense.”

Mead started out the game with a fumble on the first possession, and Fort Morgan recovered on the Mavericks’ 39-yard-line, but didn’t capitalize on anything. But the Mavericks’ offense shined on the second possession, after Mead ran it 44-yards and then senior quarterback Riley Glynn fired off a 43-yard touchdown pass to junior running back Derek Edwards.

Ultimately, Mead defense held the Mustangs’ offense back a lot of the game, and shut down two of Fort Morgan’s three 2-point conversion attempts. On the final attempt after a go-ahead TD off a Daylin Knapp QB keeper, McBride caught the 2-pt conversion reception in the end zone.

“Coming into this week, we knew Mead just beat a really tough team in Longmont,” McBride said. “Rankings don’t mean anything. We practiced hard all week running and being physical.”

The Mustangs also had a second quarter 30-yard Austin Breidenbach TD run. After an illegal chop block was called during a 2-point conversion attempt, Fort Morgan failed on the next attempted 18-yard 2-point conversion, but were only down 7-6 at the half.

Aside from Mead’s aggressive defense, junior running back Nathan Mackey gave the Mustangs’ defense a rough time all night, dodging defender after defender and making guys miss tackles all night. He was impossible to bring down.

“We’ve never seen a running back like that who’s so shifty and able to cut off,” McBride said. “He made us miss a lot of tackles and made us look foolish a lot of times, and that was our toughest thing coming in.”

Mackey had a vicious 41-yard run to the end zone, powering through Mustang defenders grabbing at his heels. But a Mead holding penalty prevented the TD from counting.

“Nathan started five or six games last year as a sophomore, and now he’s carrying our workload on offense,” Mead head coach Jason Klatt said. “We lean on him.”

Fort Morgan’s senior running back Kembel was also a very tough player to stop, and ran wild against Mead’s defense all night. He gave Fort Morgan its first lead of the game on a third quarter 4-yard TD run, and dropped the 2-point conversion pass in the end zone for the Mustangs’ second failed attempt.

McBride, younger brother of All-State player Toby McBride, who is playing at Colorado State University, was solid on both sides of the ball and made huge plays for the Mustangs.

“Tate runs the ball extremely hard and he’s not very big, but he holds his own,” Chisum said. “Trey is a very gifted football player as well, but tonight started with our offensive line, and Knapp also managed the game very well.”

Junior wide receiver Ryan Lavanchy caught a 34-yard TD pass for the Mavericks in the fourth quarter that put them up 14-12, but Fort Morgan came storming back for the last Knapp TD and McBride 2-pt conversion reception to seal the game.

“Our defense has gotten so much better, and we needed to stand up toe-to-toe with this team, and we did that,” Klatt said. “But our defense played lights out tonight and it’s going to serve us well down the road.”

He added: “Our conference is not shaken with this. We gave Fort Morgan everything they wanted, and that’s one of the top teams in 3A. This is a building block to get even better.”