1A football: No. 1 Limon pulls away from No. 6 Wray to capture 21st title

PUEBLO – For the first half of Saturday’s football state championship game against Wray, it appeared that Class 1A powerhouse Limon might need start to prepare for a second straight runner-up finish.

The Badgers had other plans.

Trailing at halftime against No. 6 Wray, the top-seeded Badgers fought their way back and turned the tide in the fourth quarter to win 39-21 at the CSU-Pueblo Thunderbowl. Instead of coming up just short despite being the favorites to win again, the Badgers left Pueblo with their fourth championship trophy in the last five years.

“It’s special because last year, we came up short,” Limon senior Gabe Schubarth said. “This year, we knew we were going to have to play our butts off. All that hard work is finally paying off and it feels really good. At halftime, our coach told us, ‘This second half is all heart.’ We knew we’d put in the work and we just had to go out and execute and play with full hearts.”

Schubarth was a key component to Saturday’s victory, rushing for 110 yards and three fourth-quarter touchdowns on 28 carries while also playing defense. The effort earned him the Most Outstanding Player award from the National Football Foundation.

In the first half, however, Wray (9-4) had the upper hand on Schubarth and the Badgers (13-0).

Forcing a Limon 3-and-out on the opening drive, Wray methodically drove the ball down the field to set up a 9-yard touchdown run by sophomore Samuel Meisner that kicked off the scoring. Limon answered in the second quarter with on a long sideline pass from Jordan Rockwell to Dontarius Arnold, who made a circus catch in the front of the end zone to tie the game with 2 minutes, 43 seconds left in the first half.

The Wray Eagles responded with a long scoring pass of their own from Casey Midcap to Chris Arambula that sent the game into halftime with Wray leading 14-7.

“We knew that last year we came up short and that just put a chip on our shoulder,” Limon’s Dontarius Arnold said. “We just wanted to come back, give it our all and hopefully win it. We could not have done that without everyone and we got first place.”

To start the second half, Limon recovered its own kickoff and drove down the field with Keon Bandy scoring a rushing touchdown to tie the game again before Wray capped another long drive with Arambula scoring his second touchdown to reclaim the lead at 21-14.

In the fourth quarter, Schubarth cut the lead to 21-20 with a rushing touchdown followed by a failed two-point conversion attempt. On the next drive, Limon’s Lohgan Bottjer recovered a fumble deep in Wray territory to set up another Schubarth score. After that, Limon’s Treyton Marx intercepted a tipped pass to set up a third Schubarth touchdown that gave Limon a 33-21 lead. Lance Beedy rumbled in for a score with 1:38 left that gave Limon the final 39-21 lead.

“Hand it off to Wray. They just played fantastic in the first half and they were taking the fight to us,” Limon head coach Mike O’Dwyer said. “I just didn’t think that we were being physical enough and when we went in at halftime, we really didn’t make any adjustments. It was more about the way we needed to play in the second half and be a lot more physical against an outstanding football team.

“I was really proud of our kids for the way they came out in the second half. Every one of these is different and what I’ll remember about this group is that they’re not a very vocal group. But when they play, they play hard. You can’t coach that. Either they do or they don’t, and that’s a testament to those kids and their families. They don’t say a lot but when they put on a helmet, boy do they play hard.”

The 2022 state title was the 21st all-time for Limon football, which is the most of any program in Colorado history. The Badgers also won three in a row from 2018-20 and finishing runner-up to Centauri last fall, and notched the program’s 700^th with a win over Colorado Springs Christian in the semifinals.

For Wray, a team that struggled with injuries but found its footing in time to make a run to the state title game, Saturday’s was the Eagles’ first title-game appearance since 2010. The Eagles last won a football championship in 1993.

The Badgers’ game with Wray on Oct. 8 during the regular season, a 13-8 win for Limon, was by far their closest contest of the season.