GREENWOOD VILLAGE — Cherry Creek survived.
The Bruins overcame four turnovers, several other costly miscues and Valor Christian’s best effort on Saturday at the Stutler Bowl. Cherry Creek rallied to beat the Eagles, 21-13, to advance to its eighth straight title game.
Cherry Creek had just six turnovers all season entering the semifinal, but giving the ball away four times — plus a couple dropped passes on heaves downfield, and multiple impactful penalties — wasn’t enough to deter the top-seeded Bruins from moving on.
“To be able to beat a really good team when we turned it over the way we did — I give a lot of credit to (Valor Christian coach) Mike (Sanford) and his staff, they were well prepared,” Cherry Creek head coach Dave Logan said. “But I also give a lot of credit to my kids and our staff. We hung in there and got pushed to the limit, but found a way at the end.
“We had two, three chances to pack it in, because it wasn’t looking good. But that’s a resilient group in blue.”
Cherry Creek, the defending champion that has won five of the last six Class 5A crowns, couldn’t get out of its own way at times on Saturday. Meanwhile, Valor Christian went toe-to-toe with the Bruins in the trenches, matching and often surpassing the physicality of the Bruins’ acclaimed front on both sides of the ball.
But in a game where Valor Christian needed a knockout blow to pull off the upset, the Eagles failed to come up with one. With the win, the Bruins — who triumphed in last year’s semifinal at home against Valor Christian in a 42-17 blowout — improved to 7-6 in the all-time series between the Colorado heavyweights.
However, Sanford believes Saturday showed the Eagles “have closed the gap” that’s been decidedly in favor of Cherry Creek lately.
“This senior class started the process of chipping away,” Sanford said. “Today came down to a call here, a play there. … We know where we’re headed, and when I got hired (in the spring) we talked about this being a climb, and this season was a huge step in the right direction.”
The visitors led at halftime and early in fourth quarter, but couldn’t hang on as Cherry Creek owned the final 10 minutes of play. Valor Christian’s attempt to tie the game in the waning seconds was stifled as the Bruins forced a strip-sack on the last play of the game from the Cherry Creek 5-yard line.
Cherry Creek, now 13-0, faces Ralston Valley in next week’s title game at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins.
Jayden Fox’s fumble ended Cherry Creek’s promising first drive as the Bruins were marching into Eagles territory. But after forcing a Valor Christian punt, the Bruins needed just three plays to drive 70 yards for a score on their next possession. The 7-0 lead via Brady Vodicka’s 9-yard TD scramble was set up by a couple long passes to tight end Ty Goettsche and wideout Maxwell Lovett.
But Valor Christian controlled the momentum for the rest of the first half following that moment.
The Eagles got a 39-yard field goal by Luke Brust late in the first quarter to cut the score to 7-3. The Bruins appeared primed to strike right back on the next drive, using another Goettsche reception to set them up deep in Valor Christian territory.
But a holding call wiped away Fox’s 11-yard TD run, then a forced fumble on a sack pushed the Bruins even further back. Cherry Creek ended up punting, and Cash Spence muffed the fair catch, which the Bruins recovered inside the 5-yard line. Once again, a flag negated another shift in the game for Cherry Creek, as a pre-snap penalty forced the Bruins to re-punt.
Then Valor Christian went on a march.
The Eagles sped up the tempo with a no-huddle drive that ate up about nine minutes of clock. The Eagles leaned on the senior running back combination of Chase Hanosh and Channing Fox to ram the ball down Cherry Creek’s throat, converting a fourth-and-short en route to Fox’s 1-yard TD dive.
It gave Valor Christian a 10-7 lead, and Brandon Wright’s interception of Vodicka on a deep ball intended for Goettsche on the ensuing possession had the Eagles hyped heading into the locker rooms.
At the half, Cherry Creek’s defense made an adjustment by putting a fifth big man on the defense line to help plug up the holes and free up Bruins linebackers from double-teams. The change was effective in limiting the gashing by Valor Christian’s rushing attack in the second half.
“The offense put us in a rough spot a couple of times, but the defense made some huge stops to help us stay in the game and eventually win,” senior linebacker Tate Matthews said. “That (adjustment on the defensive line) made Valor bounce their runs outside to where we could team-tackle them.”
In the third, the Bruins forced a punt and then were driving to take the lead. But Alijah Landrum-Hamilton fumbled in the red zone, and Valor Christian’s Rocco Cali recovered.
It was the same story on Cherry Creek’s next drive, when the Bruins were about to score again but Fox coughed it up at the 10-yard line and Valor Christian’s Jaxon Wells recovered. It was Cherry Creek’s fourth turnover of the day, all of them coming in Eagles territory, and two of them in the red zone.
“There was a lot of yelling on the sideline, but we didn’t break each other down,” Jayden Fox said. “We were frustrated, but we stuck together. And I knew I needed to atone for my fumbles.”
Cherry Creek’s defense got another stop, and once again the Bruins found themselves knocking on the door of a score. This time, Fox punched it in with a 7-yard TD run that gave the Bruins a 14-13 lead with 10:28 left in the game.
“That TD flipped the game around,” Goettsche said. “When Fox scored that first time, that’s when I was like, ‘OK, we got this.'”
Fox then put Cherry Creek firmly in control with a 10-yard TD run on 3rd and 8 with 3:32 remaining. Valor Christian moved the ball efficiently on its final drive in the waning minutes, but the Eagles stalled out after QB Titus Huard was sacked on the last play, fumbled and Matthews recovered. The Bruins blitzed both outside linebackers on the play and Huard had no chance to escape.
Cherry Creek star defensive lineman Tufanua Ionatana Umu-Cais said the Bruins leaned on their experience in last season’s title game, when they trailed Legend 10-0 at half before rallying for a 13-10 win. That day, like Saturday, the Cherry Creek defense bowed up in crunch time.
“We’re Creek — when we’re in these positions, we know how to come back,” Umu-Cais said.
Logan now heads to his 18th title game in 33 seasons as a head coach in Colorado. The first football coach in the U.S. to win titles at four different schools, Logan’s won 12 championships overall, a state record.
