FORT COLLINS — Ben Schumacher picked a nice time to have his best game in a big game.
On a historical night for Fairview, which also welcomed back from injury top-flight recruit Kenny Bell, senior Schumacher turned in big plays to push the Knights past stubborn Fort Collins 24-13 in the Class 5A Front Range League at French Field.
The Knights, ranked No. 6 in The Denver Post/9News 5A poll, moved to 8-0 for the first time since 1981. At 7-0 in league play, they also clinched no worse than a tie for their first title since 2002.
Not bad for a Fairview program that has been plagued by injury, has its third winning season in the past seven and downed its top opponent in 2009, a week before taking on crosstown rival Boulder.
“It was a grind, hats off to Fort Collins, the best team we’ve seen,” Schumacher said. “It was sweet revenge.”
Indeed, Schumacher said, last season’s embarrassing 70-35 victory by the Lambkins, who are ranked No. 2 and dipped to 7-1, 6-1, “came up in conversation” a few times.
Schumacher did something about it almost immediately as well as left the Lambkins with something to chew on late. On the game’s second play from scrimmage, he rolled right and kept on going 60 yards for a touchdown. And on the Knights’ decisive drive down the stretch that sealed it, Schumacher, again on a rollout, found Caleb Greer for a 21-yard touchdown pass with 1:51 to play.
Schumacher may have been somewhat overlooked in the Knights’ shuffle. Bell, who has been offered a scholarship by CU, returned an interception midway through the first quarter to stake the Knights to a 14-0 lead. He was back after surgery for a broken collarbone. And Tucker Tharp has been a consistent rusher.
“It doesn’t matter,” Schumacher said. “We’re not surprised with 8-0.”
Nor is Knights coach Tom McCartney.
“Now that we have some of our horses back, we can kind of get a rhythm back and figure out exactly how to utilize everybody,” he said. “We knew we had something special with this group.”
Conversely, Fort Collins kept coming and generated multiple chances, but the Lambkins were hurt by a couple of key penalties and failure to withstand the Knights’ big plays and take advantage of good field position.
“It’s like I told our kids, ‘We don’t just shoot ourselves in the foot, we take out a cannon and blow the whole leg off,’ ” Lambkins coach Eric Rice said.
Fairview 14 0 0 10 — 24
Fort Collins 3 10 0 0 — 13
F — Schumacher 60 run (Molina kick). F — Bell 53 interception return (Molina kick). FTC — FG Brakke 30. FTC — FG Brakke 24. FTC — Richard 1 run (Brakke kick). F — FG Molina 25. F — C. Greer 21 pass from Schumacher (Molina kick).
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
