No. 1 Mead football stuns No. 5 Roosevelt early in statement win
LONGMONT — Top-ranked Mead football came out and stunned No. 5 Roosevelt early in a 33-6 win on Friday.
The Mavericks scored 13 points in a matter of three-and-a-half minutes on just seven plays to open the game.
“This is what we want to do: We want to have great body language, we want to give great effort and we want to have a great attitude,” Mead coach Jason Klatt said. “If we do that, the execution happens. We don’t even focus on the scoreboard, or anything like that. We focus on those three things.”
On third down of the opening Mead possession, Derek Edwards took the handoff right, then looked up to find Dom Esters for a 67-yards touchdown on a designed running back pass.
“We’ve been tinkering with it for a couple weeks now,” Klatt said. “We liked it. Our offensive coordinator does a great job. He has a feel of what’s going on. He felt like it would be good there, and he called it. Dom Esters, he’s the guy that made it work. They kind of had it double covered, and it didn’t look good. Sometimes players make you look good. Dom did that.”
Added Edwards: “I’ve never thrown one before. I knew it was going to be open, I just had to toss it up there for Dom to make a play on it. And he did, he took it to the house. That’s all on him.”
Mead forced a fumble on the ensuing kickoff and took over on the 25 after a Jake Wachter fumble recovery.
Four plays later — on fourth down and three — quarterback Tyler Keys kept on a read option and took the run up the middle for an 18-yard touchdown.
“That was huge. Our special teams has been big all year,” Klatt said. “We’ve typically been a team that starts fast. We want to continue that, and we jumped on them early. It was nice to have that cushion in the beginning.”
Mead threw a haymaker at a Roosevelt team that came in looking to upset Class 3A’s No. 1 team. Instead, the Roughriders looked up at the scoreboard to see themselves down 13 points before the eight-minute mark in the first quarter.
“It just gives us ton of energy and pushes us in the right direction that we want to carry on for the rest of the game,” Edwards said.
Taylor Kamigaki put two field goals (23 yards, 25 yards) through the uprights to give Mead a 19-0 lead before the half was over.
Roosevelt was threatening, down 16-0, but a fumble on the snap set the Roughriders back. They were forced to attempt a fourth down conversion instead of taking points on a field goal, and were not able to convert.
Roosevelt attempted a fourth and three from the Mead 30 on the first drive of the second half, but Mead stuffed the run in the backfield.
The Maverick took the ball down the next drive for a touchdown. Keys ran it in from five yards out for his second rushing touchdown of the game.
“We feel that we have a good team all around,” Edwards said. “We want to go out and show what we can do every week. We want to come with our stuff, pound the ball and play some good, solid defense. We came out and did that.”
Roosevelt got on the board with a six-yard touchdown pass from Trent Beall to TJ Sterling with 9:34 to play.
Mead’s Nathan Mackey, held in check for most of the game, was able to break through on a 2-yard touchdown run to put the score at 33-6.
Mead avoided a loss in what has been an upset-plagued top spot in 3A this season. First, it was Pueblo East that went down. Then, Longmont was bit by the upset bug in a loss to Greeley West. Longmont got its revenge, however, by beating then-No. 1 Holy Family.
“We’re going to go to work tomorrow and get ready for a well-coached, good team next Thursday on a short week,” Klatt said. “(The win) means nothing and says nothing. We’re going to have fun tonight, but we know we’re right back to work tomorrow. We’re going to go one day at a time.”
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