Cherry Hills Village – After a long, hot summer of practices, Faith Christian’s Jeremy Aupperlee was ready to hit someone for real.
He got his chance in the third quarter against Kent Denver on Saturday and, wow, did he let loose.
Aupperlee and the Eagles played some sloppy offense but dominated on the defensive side of the ball in a 21-7 Class 2A nonleague victory over Kent Denver at DeSorrento Field in The Denver Post’s game of the week.
“I haven’t hit someone in a long time. No one really blocked me, so it was a lucky shot,” said Aupperlee, a 6-foot-3, 280-pound center and defensive tackle who crushed Kent Denver quarterback Will Deevy on the play.
It was the defense of Faith Christian (1-0) that set the tone, but the offense nearly allowed the Sun Devils (0-2) to sneak away with this one.
“We played good physically, but we have to fix the mental mistakes. We’ve got some size and we’ve got some skill, but we could do better,” said Eagles defensive back Trent Vigil, who had a number of bone-jarring hits.
Vigil brought the fans to their feet with a number of huge hits.
Faith Christian opened the game with a powerful 11-play drive that ended with Tyler Funk scoring from 3 yards out. But the Eagles’ next drive ended with Kent Denver’s Kendall Early intercepting Steve Carbajal’s pass in the end zone.
It was one of two interceptions for the Eagles, who were lucky to end the game with only four turnovers. They put the ball on the ground four other times.
A few series later, Faith Christian fumbled the snap and set up Kent Denver 13 yards away from the end zone. But the Sun Devils fumbled the ball right back on a bad handoff between Deevy and Patrick Murray.
The Eagles were given a grand opportunity to overlook their fumble and start the drive like nothing happened, but they fumbled again on the first play.
Kent Denver then started about 2 inches from the goal line, and Deevy dove across to tie the score 7-7.
“We knew we were outsized, so Coach (Scott Yates) emphasized for us to come out fighting, and that’s what we did,” the Sun Devils’ Michael Reilly said.
Reilly stopped what looked to be a certain Faith Christian touchdown with a second-half interception. He also pulled down two big catches for 54 yards.
Despite the turnovers, Faith Christian’s ground game showed how much potential this team has. Brandon Mathis led the way with 83 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries, and Funk and Jeremy Lewis both ran for 75 yards and a score.
Faith Christian 7 0 14 0 – 21
Kent Denver 0 7 0 0 – 7
FC – Funk 3 run (Roche kick). KD – Deevy 1 run (Krause kick). FC – Mathis 3 run (Roche kick). FC – Lewis 13 run (Roche kick).
