No. 8 Montrose football runs away from Palisade

The eighth-ranked Montrose football team faced Palisade on home Homecoming Night this Friday in front of a full house and the Red Hawks won, 40-14, to pull back to .500 on the season.

“Very proud of how the boys played tonight,” Red Hawks coach Brett Mertens said. “It was a great night for high school football in Montrose. Great homecoming win. I thought all three phases of the game played well and we took another step forward tonight as a team.”

On the opening drive of the game, the Red Hawks defense stopped the Bulldogs on 4^th-and-7 on the Red Hawks’ 36-yard line. The Red Hawks moved right down the field and Gage Wareham scored from eight yards out. The kick was good by Sandie Gaxlola-Levva and it was 7-0 at the end of the first quarter.

Coming off a big 49-40 win over No. 10 Erie, the Red Hawks offense then exploded for 33 second-quarter points to lead 40-0 at halftime. Blake Griffin had touchdowns of 56 and four yards, Austin Zimmer scored from 48 yards and Aiden Grijalva scored on a 24-yard run and a 20-yard pass from Wareham of 20 yards.

“Our offense came out firing with DMarian, Raul and the whole O-line dominating, creating holes for us running backs,” Griffin said. “They got us into the end zone and Gage was able to make some key throws that kept drives going. On the defense side of the ball, the defense was shutting Palisade’s offense down. This got us to the running clock. Such a great way to end with a homecoming win.”

The Bulldogs scored two second half touchdowns on the running clock.

The Red Hawks are now 2-2 and the Bulldogs fell to 0-4.