FORT MORGAN — The only thing louder in these parts on Friday night than the trains that passed Legion Field a couple of times per hour and the homemade cannon that sounded like Civil War times and signified a local score was the noise made by Mountain View in making a statement and taking over Class 3A.
The No. 2 Mountain Lions shook off a slow start and easily handled top-ranked Fort Morgan 42-18 in The Denver Post game of the week that turned into a laugher in the middle quarters. Mountain View moved to 2-0 overall, 1-0 in league and made it perfectly clear that it is playing well early in 2008.
“It’s indescribable, it’s awesome,” Mountain Lions running back Joey Hlushak said. “We just played our game and did what we did.”
What they did was awaken from offensive doldrums. After Fort Morgan, which had won 14 of its previous 15 games, executed a 91-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Garrett Pape to Ian Moreno midway though the first quarter, Mountain View ended a string of punting four consecutive times with a 35-point barrage.
In taking over the game, the Mountain Lions were thorough — they received good field position and did something with it; they started to win the line of scrimmage; their backs found holes; and their defense provided pass pressure and coverage.
With our kind of offense, we’ve been preaching that with the veer option, you can get stopped, get stopped, get stopped, then it will break open,” Mountain View coach Bart Mayes said.
It broke open.
Hlushak caught a 26-yard scoring pass and added a 3-yard run for another touchdown. Twenty-nine seconds before the half, Steve Ryan returned a punt 40 yards for a touchdown as the Mountain Lions stunned the Fort Morgan crowd in taking a 21-6 bulge into the locker room.
It continued in the third quarter. Fort Morgan, the 2008 3A runner-up, two-time defending league champion and 24-4 under coach Harrison Chisum, couldn’t stop it. Luke Baumann picked off Pape at the Mustangs’ 26-yard line and waltzed into the end zone. Hlushak scored his third touchdown a series later as the Mountain Lions led 35-6.
“Baumann is one of the smallest guys (5-foot-6, 150 pounds) we’ve got, but he was (one of) our few ironmen in weightlifting,” Mayes said. “He has just stepped up and been phenomenal.”
Conversely, the Mustangs (1-1, 0-1) struggled. They made a first down on their first series, then another on the 91-yarder, but that was about it. They didn’t get another until 7:48 remained in the fourth quarter. They were victimized inside and outside by the Mountain Lions’ rushing attack, and had trouble breaking free from tight coverage in the secondary.
“It was really a tough night and we couldn’t get going,” Chisum said.
“Not to take anything away from (Mountain View), but we had a good game plan and didn’t do it . . . that’s why this game is so crazy.
“But do you know what? This is a great thing for our boys. We’re going to make this a positive.”
The Mountain Lions made their positives during the game.
“We had thoughts about doing this, but we’re just going to go 110 percent and just play our game,” Hlushak said. “It’s happening.”
Said Mayes: “We have a long ways to go, but yeah, we’ve liked what we’ve seen so far. We have to keep improving every week.”
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
