Battle Mountain football wins on Senior Night
Rex Keep | Special to the Daily |
EDWARDS — Every senior class has its tale to tell, and then there’s Battle Mountain football’s Class of 2016.
The seven, who finished out the home slate on Senior Night on Friday with a 52-12 romp of Coal Ridge in Edwards, went to football hell and back in Huskies’ black and gold in their four years.
As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, “There was no there there,” when it came to Battle Mountain football during their freshman and sophomore years. This septet not only went 0-20, but were pretty much beaten senseless in the process.
The last two years, they have deservedly tasted success with a Class 2A Slope North title last season and four more wins this year.
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One has to love the game to keep coming back through all the losses, not to mention three coaches in four years. So Friday’s Senior Night win over the Titans was a big one.
Take a bow, Demetrius Parrish, Chase Keep, Noah Shamis, Wyatt Harwood, Anthony Romero, Wolf Brenner and Jimmy Le.
“I told them how proud I was to be associated with them,” Huskies coach Cliff Lohrey said. “When we get this program rolling the way I think we will, they will have been responsible for starting it as juniors.”
This was no contest from the start, and the seniors doubtless enjoyed being on the right end of a running clock. Harwood and Parrish had scoring runs in the first quarter to stake Battle Mountain to a 14-0 lead.
Shamis did the damage in the second quarter with two touchdowns. Shamis was a wrecking crew on both sides of the ball. Lohrey said that No. 25 played his best game of the year on defense as well.
Keep finished off the half with a 33-yard field goal. Not only did Keep extend his touchback streak to 18 on kickoffs, he also had a pick on defense, as did Traver Goldberg.
Lest one think this was a purely offensive show, the Huskies defense didn’t allow a first down in the first half.
Parrish threw two touchdowns in the second half, one to Zane Hensel and the other to Keep. Freshman David Sandberg finished the scoring with a 48-yard run.
Battle Mountain (4-4 overall and 3-2 in the 2A Slope) bounced back nicely from what Lohrey termed “a small step back last week” in a loss to Basalt. The Huskies hope to finish the season well at Pueblo County next week.
“We told them it’s our last game and we’re going to give them everything we have and see if it’s enough,” Lohrey said.
Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934, cfreud@vaildaily.com and @cfreud.
