HIGHLANDS RANCH — Mountain Vista, an unstoppable football machine, has put Class 5A on championship notice.
In front of a sellout, standing-room-only crowd at Halftime Help Stadium on Friday, with fans spilling into the aisles and peering over the fences, Mountain Vista met the moment — and more — in its highly anticipated homecoming game against Valor Christian.
The Golden Eagles raced to a 27-0 lead early in the second quarter, and Mountain Vista’s explosive offense didn’t let up en route to a 62-21 running-clock boat racing that is a record for points scored against Valor Christian. Post Preps No. 2 Mountain Vista was previously 0-8 against No. 4 Valor Christian, but its first win over its league rival came with authority in a statement game.
“It’s a week six game, it’s not a playoff game, but this is a huge win for our program,” Mountain Vista head coach Garrett Looney said. “It’s a program builder. And this is just a step in what we’re trying to accomplish: A state title.”
Friday night’s beatdown, on top of five blowout victories to start the season, improved Mountain Vista to 6-0 as the Golden Eagles played like the best team in Class 5A. MVHS has never won a state title in football, but its play Friday suggested it should be considered a favorite to do so this season.
With Mountain Vista wearing all-black uniforms and white helmets with Oregon-style black feathers, Golden Eagles senior QB Austyn Modrzewski turned in yet another Marcus Mariota impression. Modrzewski threw for four first-half TDs and ran for another, then poured it on in the second half as Valor Christian had no answer for his arm and 400-plus yards passing.
The Eagles were flattened by the run, too, as speedy and shifty senior running back Jack Blais went over 100 yards. Blais had two scores by ground and another by air as Mountain Vista ripped off TDs on all eight of its possessions.
“We’ve been stepping on stepping stones, we’ve been continually climbing up over the last four seasons,” Modrzewski said. “This win is a huge accomplishment as a program, but we truly want to aim higher, because we’ve been working for higher. And tonight showed what this offense is capable of when we’re dialed in.”
Elam Parises got the Golden Eagles going with a 12-yard TD catch on a screen, bruising through several defenders at the goal line for the game’s first score on the opening possession. Modrzewski added a three-yard TD run and an 87-yard dime dropped right into the outstretched arms of Sean Conway to make it 20-0 by the end of the opening quarter.
At that point, Valor Christian had just one first down, via penalty, and six yards of total offense through three drives. The Eagles were discombobulated on their second drive, when referees made multiple linemen come out of the game because they didn’t have knee pads in. That, in addition to an offsides penalty when the Eagles were lined up to go for it on fourth-and-2, killed their only momentum of the frame.
A methodical drive by Mountain Vista, capped by Blais’ 3-yard TD run, extended the lead to 27-0 early in the second quarter.
“Our plan was to keep them off-balance,” Looney said. “We’ve been a little pass-heavy these first five games. But tonight, I knew we needed to be more balanced, and we did a really good job of mixing in the screen game, the quick-pass game, and we threw it deep a couple of times but not like we usually do. And our running game was really good tonight.”
Valor Christian finally found some life after that, scoring twice within 10 seconds. Cash Spence had a four-yard TD run, then Mountain Vista muffed the ensuing kickoff and the Eagles recovered. The play after that, Spence came up big again, with a 32-yard TD catch off the hand of QB Dawson Olk.
But the Mountain Vista offense couldn’t be taken out of hyperspeed.
Modrzewski scrambled and found Blais for a 72-yard touchdown pass, and the Golden Eagles responded to another Valor Christian score with a long kickoff return by Jakhai Mack and another Modrzewski TD pass, this time to Conway. That made it 41-21 at half.
“(Valor Christian’s first-half TDs) was the first time we really had adversity this year and had a truly eye-opening moment, but our response was great,” Looney said.
The script remained the same in the second half.
After Mountain Vista snuffed out a promising Valor Christian drive with a gang-sack on fourth down, Modrzewski & Co. went right back to work. On a drive where they had two TDs wiped off the board due to a penalty, the Golden Eagles still found the end zone anyway via Blais’ two-yard scoring run to push the lead to 48-21 midway through the third.
Blais ran all night behind a physical offensive line that was getting push on nearly every play. The unit — headlined by 6-foot-7, 300-pound Navy commit Jack Heath — has also yet to give up a sack this season. Modrzewski had plenty of time to drop back in the pocket and dice up the defense.
“Our guys up front took it personal tonight,” Looney said. “There was a lot of talk all week (by Valor Christian players) that we can’t run the ball, that we’re soft, and our kids took that to heart. I think we showed that we’re not very soft at all.”
The Golden Eagles added yet another score with 15 seconds left in the third, capitalizing on cornerback Bryce Bailey’s interception. Mack took a short swing pass and made three Eagles miss en route to a 20-yard TD catch.
Then, senior middle linebacker Carter Daniels — the heart and soul of the Golden Eagles defense who had already made his presence felt in a big way on the night — picked up a fumble from about 15 yards out and rumbled in for a scoop-and-score on the final play of the third quarter. That prompted a running clock for the final quarter.
By this point, at 62-21, the fan section for Valor Christian (5-1) had thinned. But the black-clad Golden Eagles crowd remained in full force up to the final buzzer of the historic win. After the game ended, Looney was probably the angriest he’d been all night because stadium security wouldn’t let the Mountain Vista fans storm the field after what can be considered the biggest win in program history.
“This team is not scared of anybody,” Daniels said. “We’re the best skill team in the state. I know Cherry Creek’s got guys, Valor’s got guys, Ralston Valley and Columbine’s got guys. But pound-for-pound, there’s nobody like us. We have athleticism and size and so much talent… It’s state or bust for us at this point. Anything less would be a disappointment.”
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