Behind freshman Sawchuck, Valor Christian football tops ThunderRidge in 5A quarters
HIGHLANDS RANCH — More often than not, playoff glory comes at the hands of veterans. Seniors and juniors tend to step up and provide big moments to propel their teams forward in brackets.
Gavin Sawchuck is the exception to the rule. The freshman running back for Valor Christian put himself on the map by running for five touchdowns in a 34-7 win over ThunderRidge in the Class 5A quarterfinals.
“He had such a great game today,” Valor coach Ed McCaffrey said. “I give a lot of credit to our offensive line, they worked really hard up front. You never know how a game is going to play out. Some games you throw it 50 times, some games you run it 50 times. I don’t know what his totals were, but he looked good from where I was standing.”
His totals read like a stat line of a grinder. He ran the ball 24 times for 113 yards and scored all of Valor’s touchdowns.
It gives the Eagles another weapon to utilize in next week’s semifinals where they await the winner of Saturday’s game between Eaglecrest and Grandview.
“It was fun,” Sawchuck said. “We had a lot of juniors and seniors on the line who stepped up and blocked well. It was fun to run behind them and help the team.”
It took longer than they hoped, but the Eagles (12-0 overall) found some rhythm on their second drive of the game. A poor ThunderRidge punt set up Valor on the Grizzlies 32-yard line. It took three plays for the Eagles to break the scoreless tie as Sawchuck broke into the end zone from two yards out.
The Grizzlies came out inspired on the ensuing drive as Ryan Gilmore orchestrated a brilliant offensive series capped with a Spencer Lambert touchdown to pull the Grizzlies (9-3) back to even with Valor.
“We knew we were fine,” Valor quarterback Luke McCaffrey said. “We just had to get back to what we like to do and play our game. We didn’t stress and we didn’t freak out.”
But they did run into some ball security issues. A series of turnovers stopped either team from taking further control of the game. Jack Howell picked off Gilmore giving the Eagles a chance to retake the lead. But penalties backed the Eagles into a 2nd and 42 situation. McCaffrey took to the air on third down but the ball into the waiting arms of Aden Scott.
The Grizzlies had the ball back in their hands but Jaden Murray recovered a fumble for the Eagles. With the turnover plague in full force the Eagles finally held on to the ball and put together their second scoring drive of the game, this one also capped off by a Sawchuck touchdown run.
“Against a team with that much talent, we couldn’t make those kinds of errors,” ThunderRidge coach Doug Nisenson said. “We knew we had to play a clean game and that just didn’t happen tonight.”
Sawchuck added one more before the half to push the Valor lead to 21-7. In the first two quarters, the freshman went for 66 total yards and had been the difference in giving the Eagles a two-score lead.
Neither team found the end zone in the third quarter and the Eagles sealed their win in the fourth when Sawchuck scored two more times to cap off a career night that even he couldn’t keep track of.
“It was crazy,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was that many touchdowns until the end of the game.”
The loss marked the end of the year for the Grizzlies in what was very much a turnaround season. In just his second year as head coach Nisenson made believers of his senior class and knew they planted the seeds for the Grizzlies return to football prominence.
“We knew this was a special class when they were freshmen,” he said. “We told them last year it was going to be a grind, we told them there would be learning experiences and we had a really tough season. We went 3-7 and nobody was talking about us coming into this year and they just showed up and did the work.”
The Eagles now look to the 5A semifinals for the first time in two years. They lost in last year’s quarterfinals to Grandview and came into 2018 driven and ready to rebound from that loss.
“This team has had a steadfast focus this entire season,” Coach McCaffrey said. “They have the enough is never enough attitude. They have fun, they love football and they’re really hard workers.”
Taking a one game at a time approach, this is not a team not is drawing on the success of two years ago or the state championship teams of any past year.
This group of players is looking forward to standing out on its own.
“We’re a new team and we’re ready to start our own legacy,” Luke McCaffrey said. “We came in fired up like it was any other game.”
And they won it just as they had the 11 games prior. And they’ll look to take the same approach in next week’s semfinals.
