BAILEY — What are the odds?
Who could have expected such beautiful, unseasonably brilliant weather for Week 7 football at Platte Canyon, where ordinarily it would have been windy, cold, windy, snowing or raining, and windy?
And who could have projected a shutout of the undefeated host Huskies?
Both scenarios were interesting bets Saturday afternoon, when Kent Denver handled second-ranked Platte Canyon 28-0. It was the Sun Devils’ third consecutive shutout — they haven’t been scored on in 13 quarters — and kept them in a tie with undefeated Bennett atop the Colorado League.
Ranked No. 5 in The Denver Post/9News 2A poll, Kent Denver (5-2, 2-0) handed the Huskies (6-1, 1-1) their first shutout in 61 games. They last were given a goose egg on Oct. 14, 2005, 35-0 against Faith Christian, and, as two-time defending league champions, had won 19 league games in succession.
“It’s a tough place to play,” Sun Devils coach Scott Yates said. “They have a great program, coach (Mike) Schmidt has a good system in place. You can’t make mistakes.”
Kent Denver didn’t. It rode a big defensive effort from front to back, from defensive end Zach Motz to safety Richard Yates. The Sun Devils allowed no passing yards and only 138 yards rushing to the Huskies, whose double-wing attack met with conflict in all areas.
Of its five drives in the first half, Platte Canyon punted four times and gave it over on downs. Four more tries down the stretch yielded only more punts and a lost fumble at the Kent Denver 15-yard line.
“They won everything. They won every phase of the game,” Schmidt said. “I was disappointed in our tackling and (the Sun Devils’) tackling, on the flip side, was excellent.”
Offensively, two rushing touchdowns from Clay Des-Jardin and one each by Allen Tillis and Matt Florence were more than enough. In fact, Florence proved successful in changing direction like drivers on Crow Hill. Plus, the Sun Devils repeatedly hurt the Huskies on third down.
But it was their defense that had more slowdowns and stop signs than a stretch of area construction.
“Their offense is really tough,” Motz said. “I think we played very well up front and that’s what you have to do against these guys.”
Kent Denver 0 7 7 14 — 28
Platte Canyon 0 0 0 0 — 0
KD — DesJardin 1 run (Petre kick). KD — Florence 35 run (Petre kick). KD — Tellis 1 run (Petre kick). KD — DesJardin 24 run (Petre kick).
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
