ELIZABETH — After an oddball season-opening victory with some stick-slim offensive numbers, and an off-the-map trouncing of Rupert Minico High in Pocatello, Idaho, in Week 2, the team ranked No. 2 in Colorado’s Class 3A seemed patiently ready to finally stretch its legs.
Stretched them 95 yards long.
Elizabeth’s Joe Finken returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown and the host Cardinals welcomed No. 8 Palmer Ridge to the 3A ranks with a 41-20 defeat Friday.
Brad Goldsberry, a 5-foot-8, 165-pound senior, led Elizabeth with three touchdown runs, the final a 15-yard bruiser with 5:16 left in the game that put the Cardinals up 41-7. His 12 carries for 101 yards trailed teammate Matt Biery, who led all rushers with 104 yards on 17 attempts.
“We knew we would have to grind out yards,” Elizabeth’s 11th-year coach Chris Cline said. “We missed a couple of big plays, but the offensive line dominated. And we gained 4, 5, 6 yards at a time. We’d like to go long, we have the speed. But we love pounding it out.”
It was a complete statistical turnaround for the Cardinals after they ran just 26 plays from scrimmage in a 28-13 win over Erie to open the season. Elizabeth has rebranded itself a double-wing attack — following years of an I-formation scheme — and Friday kept its offense on the field for most of the first half.
The Cardinals defense, too, blanketed Palmer Ridge in the trenches. The Bears didn’t cross midfield until 10:45 of the third quarter.
“It’s nice to have some time on offense for a change,” Goldsberry said. “Today it was more even and we showed it on offense. We finally got to put some points on the board.”
Goldsberry’s 2-yard scoring run and another from 1 yard out within nine minutes kept the Cardinals rolling. They went into halftime leading 34-0.
“That’s what happens against a fast, experienced football team,” Palmer Ridge coach Monte Gutowski said. “It was a like a deer in headlights. Elizabeth forced us to make mistakes. They ran all over us tonight.”
Hunter Warwick, Palmer Ridge’s senior quarterback, led the team’s scoring attack with two TD runs, the final a 71-yard sprint down the right sideline with :35 seconds remaining. His nine carries for 84 yards made for the bulk of the Bears’ 152 total yards.
For Elizabeth, patience was the buzzword. Short runs up the middle and end-arounds the sides chipped off yards. With only two players wider than 225 pounds, the Cardinals took advantage of an impressive trapping scheme to string together long drives. As a unit, they rushed for 302 yards on 53 carries and gained 334 total yards.
Palmer Ridge, after moving up a classification this year for its first season in 3A, landed on the statewide radar last week with a head-turning 30-0 win over ranked stalwart Windsor. The young Bears were high with confidence and their devil-may-care attitude as new kids on the 3A block netted them 67 points over two games to start the year.
At times in the second half, that explosiveness surfaced again for the team from Monument. Palmer Ridge kept Elizabeth scoreless in the third quarter, collecting two interceptions, from Kyle Anderson and Kyle Gannon. Winn Howard’s 16-yard run off left tackle early in the fourth quarter put the Bears on the board at 34-7.
“It wasn’t pretty. We just stood there,” Palmer Ridge senior Colin Babcock said. “We didn’t know what to do. It’s a bummer. It wasn’t fun at all.”
Palmer Ridge: 0 – 0 – 0 – 20 — 20
Elizabeth: 14 – 20 – 0 – 7 — 41
E: Finken 95 kickoff return (S. Taylor kick). E: Goldsberry 2 run (S. Taylor kick). E: Goldsberry 1 run (S. Taylor kick). E: Butler 1 run (kick failed). E: Biery 2 run (S. Taylor kick). PR: Howard 16 run (Johnson kick). E: Goldsberry 15 run (S. Taylor kick). PR: Warwick 1 run (kick failed). PR: Warwick 71 run (Johnson kick).
Nick Groke: 303-954-1015 or rcasey@denverpost.com
