LAKEWOOD — Andrew Hood soared into the air, a cornerback hanging from his back like a cape. The Chatfield receiver had a few tasks at hand — notably, keep the blistering pass in his hands, keep a foot inbounds and oh, yeah, keep his injured shoulder from popping out of his shoulder pads.
“I haven’t seen a catch that great since I’ve been coaching,” said Chatfield coach Bret McGatlin, a former receiver himself, now in his 10th year of coaching. “It looked like his fingers got longer as he caught it.”
Playing with a right shoulder that’s been dislocated four times, Hood snatched the game-winning touchdown in Chatfield’s 17-10 victory against Ponderosa Friday at Jeffco Stadium. Hood’s 20-yard haul along the left sideline in the end zone with 4:01 left gave Chatfield its first lead of the game, which it clung to in the waning minutes as the sun set on Denver and Ponderosa.
“The defense, they won the football game for us,” said McGatlin, whose team is 2-0. “And the offense stepped up late.”
Chatfield quarterback Sam Stratton called his game “very sloppy,” an honest description of a day in which his two interceptions epitomized Chatfield’s inconsistency. But the signal-caller, headed to Wyoming next fall, ascended when it mattered most. He only got a chance to do so thanks to his pirouetting partner-in-crime.
The game was tied at 10. With 4:35 left, Chatfield faced a fourth-and-2 from the Ponderosa 20, so Stratton handed the ball to running back Shaw Gifford.
Bam! Linebacker Caleb Courkamp immediately wrapped his arms around Gifford well behind the line of scrimmage. But Gifford spun out of Courkamp’s grasp and galloped for a first down.
“I thought there was no way he’d get out of it,” Stratton said. “But after he got that first down, I knew we were going to win.”
On the next play, Stratton found Hood for the clincher.
“I went nuts, screaming and yelling,” said Stratton, whose rushing touchdown in the third tied the game at 10. “It was ridiculous.”
Ponderosa allowed 17 points, sure, but its defense was daunting, keeping Gifford from becoming a first-half factor and making Stratton earn every yard, thanks in part to the snarling Riley Lange, a linebacker’s linebacker.
With the game knotted at 3 in the first half, Ponderosa grabbed the momentum when Chatfield couldn’t hold on to a punt. Returner Erik Gayton had the ball punched out of his possession with 4:15 left in the half, and the ball scooted all the way to the Chatfield 20, recovered by Ponderosa’s Tyler Sandt, as jaws dropped so wide mouthpieces popped out. Two plays later, quarterback Thomas Thornton lofted a perfect parabola to running back Michael Segura for the game’s first touchdown.
Segura ran the football like it was Senior Night — “He just loves the game,” coach Randy Huff said — and Segura finished with 145 yards on 23 carries. He was the game’s best player. But Hood made the game’s best play.
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
