Green Mountain football pulls off upset of Standley Lake
ARVADA — A strong second-half by Green Mountain led a signature win for the Rams’ football program late Friday night.
Class 3A Green Mountain scored 21 unanswered points to start the second half at the North Area Athletic Complex. The run turned a 13-10 halftime deficit against 4A Standley Lake into an eventual 31-19 victory.
“All the credit goes to our players,” Green Mountain’s first-year head coach Jesse German said of the Rams’ 21-0 run in the second half. “We tell them what to do and they do it. We thought if we were going to take that step forward we had to go capitalize and seize our opportunity.”
Junior quarterback Trey Towndrow threw, caught and ran in a touchdowns during the Rams’ key 21-0 run for the Rams. Towndrow threw a 44-yard touchdown to Trey Corkin to open the third quarter.
The Rams used some tricky on a 4th-and-11 play with Darius Padilla throwing back to Towndrow for a 23-yard touchdown. The junior came up big again with an 18-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter to extend Green Mountain’s lead to 31-13.
“We just stuck to our play-calls and our coach (German) called a great game,” Towndrow said. “We just went out there and did our jobs.”
Standley Lake (2-2 record) put in a late touchdown to cut the lead to 31-19, but after the Rams (2-2) recovered an on-side kick Towndrow came up big again. The junior ripped off a 43-yard run to put the Rams on Standley Lake’s 15-yard line.
Green Mountain was able to run out the clock from there.
“That felt great,” Towndrow said of his game-sealing run with minutes to play. “We knew we had it secure at that point. That was game.”
Towndrow was in the mix on all four Ram touchdowns in the second straight victory for Green Mountain after an 0-2 start to the season.
“No. 5 (Towndrow) is a special player and a special kid,” German said. “He is a great leader. He leads those guys.”
It was a wild final minute of the first half, which was highlighted by the two teams combining for 18 penalty flags in the opening 24 minutes.
Green Mountain took a 10-7 lead when Towndrow connected with junior Quinn Meinert for a 27-yard touchdown with 42.4 seconds left before halftime. A flag on the play was picked up that allowed the touchdown to stand.
However, Standley Lake responded quickly with a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by last year’s Class 4A 400-meter state champion Tyler Williams with 28.8 second left before half. The Gators’ were flagged for sideline interference, but it was only a warning for the first interference infraction.
The Gators missed the extra point to put Standley Lake up 13-10 at halftime.
Standley Lake wraps up its non-league schedule at All-City Stadium next Friday night. The Gators face Denver South before diving into their 4A Jeffco League schedule.
Green Mountain will celebrate its homecoming by facing Falcon in a non-conference game next Thursday at Jeffco Stadium in Lakewood.
“This is definitely a program win. It’s going to put that pride back into Green Mountain like when they had when Coach (Don) McGatlin was here,” German said referring to former Green Mountain coach Don McGatlin who guided the Rams to 4A state titles in 1995 and 1999. “We are going to celebrate it, but we have to get onto the next game very soon.”
