MONUMENT — The last time that Broomfield football made the trip down to Don Breese Stadium for the Class 4A state playoffs, the Eagles left battered, bruised and defeated by Palmer Ridge.
On Friday night under the same bright lights, a year later, the fifth-seeded Eagles played heartbreaker in their 32-23 win over the No. 4 Bears, this time securing their own ticket to the semifinals despite a late-game scare.
Nothing comes easy at this stage, but Eagle senior running back Colin Torres sure knows how to make it look simple. With the score tightening midway through the fourth quarter, Torres ran the Palmer Ridge defense ragged with a five-and-a-half minute series of runs — mostly from himself — before punching in the winning, 20-yard score with just over two minutes left to play.
He finished his night with 168 yards and three touchdowns.
“My nerves were running high, but I knew I could count on my big boys,” Torres said. “They paved the way for me, just found a crease, and it felt great. I just found that hole, scored, and celebrated with my boys. No words can explain that, man. We’ve been working all year for this team, all year. We had a bad taste in our mouth since last year, 300-something days, bad taste. This is the team we wanted. ”
His fellow team leader, senior CT Worley, carried the celebration straight into the postgame interview as he triumphantly lifted the Eagles’ hero. The Eagles will now move on to the semifinals to face off with No. 1 Dakota Ridge, which ended No. 8 Ponderosa’s run with a 14-0 decision on Friday night.
Quarterback Darien Jackson helped keep the Bears guessing all night, adding 198 yards and a passing score of his own.
The Eagles hit paydirt in their first offensive play of the game, as Torres shifted into high gear to run the ball 44 yards past the pylon. Palmer Ridge’s Jackson Mabe responded with his own touchdown to give the Bears a 7-6 lead with 4:30 left in the first quarter, but that advantage for his team was fleeting.
Points after touchdowns were the Eagles’ biggest Achilles’ heel through the first half. They failed to score the extra points on all three of their touchdowns, with Torres (1-yard run) and a Jackson-to-Gio Toledo connection (16 yards) accounting for their other two six-pointers through the first 24 minutes. They held an 18-10 lead at the half thanks to a 37-yard field goal from PRHS’ Rhett Armstrong.
Mabe picked up his second touchdown of the game to start the third quarter and inch the Bears closer to the Eagles, 18-16, only to see Elliot Less punch them back in the mouth with his own 20-yard sprint and 25-16 advantage in the final minute of the frame.
Mabe continued his menacing mission with another score at the 7:22 mark, forcing Broomfield’s offense to make every yard matter. Torres was just the man for the job.
The Eagles stretched out a five-minute, 20-second possession before the man of the hour burst out for his own 20-yard dagger at the 2:03 mark.
Broomfield’s defense took care of the rest.
Just two years after their last state championship — and in their second year under head coach Robert O’Brien — the Eagles are still in the hunt for another.
“Itap trust with each other, trust with our coaches, chemistry with our boys, team bonding,” Torres said. “We’re just all a tight group, and that leads to wins. We have grit, we have heart.”
