Dakota Ridge football edges Mesa Ridge in 4A top-10 battle

LAKEWOOD — It was a clash of top-10 Class 4A football teams late Friday night at Jeffco Stadium.

No. 6 Dakota Ridge hosted No. 5 Mesa Ridge — both sitting squarely in the top-10 of the Colorado Preps Football Rankings — in front of a large homecoming crowd for the Eagles.

Dakota Ridge held off a 4th-quarter surge by the Grizzlies (2-1 record) to hand Mesa Ridge its first loss of the season. The Eagles (2-1) got a key defensive stand midway through the fourth quarter and ran the clock out with nearly a 6-minute drive to end the game to take a 19-14 victory.

“We were all just going to fight,” Dakota Ridge junior Landon Kalsbeck said of the defensive attitude when Mesa Ridge drove down inside the Eagles’ 20-yard line trying to get the go-head score in the fourth quarter. “It’s our homecoming game. You see this amazing student section. We couldn’t let (Mesa Ridge) in our end zone.”

On a 3rd-and-1 from Dakota Ridge’s 16-yard line, Kalsbeck tackled Mesa Ridge’s quarterback Bryce Riehl for a big 3-yard loss to bring up a fourth down. Riehl flipped a ball incomplete on the fourth-down play to turn the ball back over to Dakota Ridge.

“The cool thing is a lot of his (defensive) plays were from behind,” Dakota Ridge coach Jeremiah Behrendsen said of Kalsbeck having a handful of tackles behind the line-of-scrimmage on the night and three sacks in the first half alone. “Our coaches noticed that if we were coming from the backside, (Kalsbeck) was getting ignored a little bit. I wouldn’t do that. He is able to chase stuff down from behind.”

Behrendsen said the big night defensive for Kalsbeck wouldn’t have been possible without his teammates doing their job around him to free up the junior linebacker to make plays.

Kalsbeck helped ice the game offensively with a monster 15-yard run on a 4th-and-2 play from the Eagles’ own 37-yard line in the final minutes.

“Honestly, it was a combination of things,” Behrendsen said of the Eagles going for it on 4th-and-2 instead of punting it away. “We put seven guys in a bind there that we believe in. We caught the edge. We knew that was our best chance and (Kalsbeck) did a great job of getting the first down.”

A couple of more first down allowed the Eagles to run out the clock and take the victory.

“We still aren’t playing perfect,” Behrendsen admitted. “We have so many things that aren’t quite there in so many ways. I have a lot of potential to be pretty special.”

Kalsbeck also opened up the scoring with a 5-yard touchdown run midway through the first quarter. The two-way player had six straight carries that covered 57 yards for the scoring drive.

The Eagles extended the lead to 13-0 with 9:44 left before halftime on a 5-yard touchdown run by junior quarterback Kellen Behrendsen. 

Mesa Ridge had its best drive of the first half that cut Dakota Ridge’s lead to 13-7. Junior running back Tre Salas found the end zone on a 5-yard touchdown run midway through the second quarter to make it a 1-score lead going into halftime.

Kalsbeck found the end zone again on a 5-yard touchdown run to extend the lead to 19-7 with 3:47 left in the third quarter. Mesa Ridge made things interesting after Riehl hit junior Gavyn Bowen for a 6-yard touchdown on a 4th-and-goal from the 6-yard line, cutting the lead to 19-14 with 10 minutes to play.

Dakota Ridge will hit to road and head to the North Area Athletic Complex next Friday, Sept. 20. The Eagles face off against Pomona (2-1). The Panthers — a program that moved down from the 5A classification to 3A for the next 2-year cycle — will be coming off an impressive 33-7 victory over Green Mountain on Sept. 12.

“Pomona is going to be super physical,” Behrendsen said. “The good news is we have played a few physical teams this year. We are ready for that.”

Dakota Ridge had wins over Green Mountain and Mesa Ridge. A loss to area-rival Chatfield is the Eagles’ lone blemish.

“I think we have one of the tougher schedules in 4A,” Kalsbeck said. “I think that will only prepare us better for playoffs.”