LITTLETON — Much like the past spring’s track season, Heritage’s Jordan Edwards has been quiet, efficient and emerging at the right time in his first season of schoolboy football.
In May, Edwards broke through and won the Class 5A 100 meters.
On Friday night, the senior added just his third and fourth receptions of the season, all for touchdowns, as the Eagles wore down visiting Sierra 50-19 at Littleton Public Schools Stadium in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs.
Heritage moved to 10-1 and will take on Pine Creek in the quarterfinals. Sierra ended 8-3.
Heritage coach Mike Griebel had feared the Stallions’ speed, quickness and athleticism, but Edwards added his own speed for the Eagles with scoring receptions of 49 and 64 yards. His second reception put the game out of reach late in the third quarter and the plays he made on the ball made it seem like he has been doing it for years.
“They were playing man coverage on me,” Edwards said. “I was just able to make the catches.”
Said Griebel: “He hasn’t played before and we’re glad to have him.”
It was close through two quarters, although Heritage may have gotten the spark it needed — and took its first lead at 16-14 — when sophomore Josh Meyers sacked Sierra quarterback Laterell Burrows for a 13-yard loss and a safety 2:26 before halftime.
Sierra had sputtered offensively and was spotty on defense. The Stallions took a 13-7 lead on two touchdown runs by senior Dontre Walker, the first on a bulldozer push from 11 yards in which he carried five tacklers the final 6 yards.
However, Heritage gradually took over, as did its offensive line, paving the way to 36 points in the second half. Solid running by Jordan Delbaugh and a spirited showing by Blair Zimmerman (11 carries, 165 yards) seemed to wear on the Stallions.
Delbaugh’s 40-yard run with 8:34 remaining in the fourth quarter made it 36-13 as well as Burrows’ 2-yard scoring run with with 5:41 remaining inconsequential. Zimmerman added a 3-yarder 3 minutes later.
“I didn’t sleep that much this week,” Griebel said in fretting about the Stallions’ big-play ability.
His son, Mitch, the Eagles starting quarterback and shutdown cornerback, helped alleviate his father’s worries by crisply running the offense and all but taking away Stallions’ speedy wide receiver Kelby Dias.
“We didn’t get the ball into the hands of our playmakers,” Sierra head coach Joe Roskam said. “We could have run Dontre Walker a little more, he probably could have helped us a lot there. Defensively, we started going south and couldn’t stop them. They are a good football team.”
For all but a few weeks of the regular season, Sierra had been running 1-2 in The Denver Post/9News 4A poll.
Sierra 7 6 0 6 — 19
Heritage 0 15 14 21 — 50
S — Walker 11 run (Aguilar kick). H — Griebel 1 run (kick failed). S — Walker 1 run (kick failed). H — Edwards 49 pass from Griebel (Vadelius kick). H — Safety. H — Zimmerman 7 run (Vadelius kick). H — Edwards 64 pass from Griebel (Vadelius kick). H — Delbaugh 40 run (Vadelius kick). S — Burrows 2 run (run failed). H — Delbaugh 3 run (Vadelius kick). H — Holifield 42 run (Vadelius kick).
Neil H. Devlin: 303-965-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
