Foothill flies flag proud after rivalry win at Basic
Mateo Monterde sees the big “B” on the mountain near Basic’s football field. He and his Foothill football team can’t quite reach that, so he figured planting his school’s flag in the grass after Friday’s game is the next-best thing.
The Falcons stormed into the Battle for Boulder Highway, and after falling behind in the fourth quarter, engineered a final touchdown drive capped by Jordan Blakely’s second 2-yard touchdown run of the night, and won Friday’s rivalry game, 21-17.
“We had the plan that we were going to bring the flag here and claim it for us since they claimed the mountain, we were going to claim their field,” Monterde said. “This is basically our Super Bowl.”
The schools are separated by just over two miles, and emotions were hot most of the game, Foothill (6-0, 1-0 Southeast League) brought a strong student contingent that traded chants with Basic’s all night.
The Foothill fans were loud early after their team marched down the field on the opening drive and scored on Blakely’s 2-yard Wildcat run. He had an identical run to cap the scoring in the fourth, something the team spent last week’s bye week working on.
“We knew we could do it in short yardage, we went with a heavier package and he’s really athletic so we just snapped the ball right to him and let him get in the end zone, which is something he does pretty well,” Foothill coach Marty Redmond said. “We figured it would work.”
Added Blakely: “We wanted to shake it up and bring something new to the table.”
Foothill opened the third quarter with an onside kick, then scored on a 32-yard fourth-down pass from Koy Riggin to Braeden Wilson through the defender’s hands and over Wilson’s opposite shoulder, a reception Redmond called “one of the best catches I’ve ever seen in high school football.”
It was 14-0 then, but the Wolves (2-4, 0-1) weren’t about to let their fans stay silent the whole night.
Michael Click caught his first touchdown pass from Paul Myro from 17 yards out with 4:04 left in the third to cut the score to 14-7, then caught a screen pass at midfield and darted 50 yards to tie the game with 11:26 left in the fourth. After a fumble on Foothill’s first play of the next drive, Basic took its first lead of the game on a 29-yard field goal from Torres Miller with 10:53 to play.
That was the last time Foothill let the Basic faithful get loud. The Falcons moved down the field, aided by three Basic personal fouls, and Blakely scored with 4:40 left. That was enough, and Foothill won its sixth in a row to open the season for the first time since 2008, when it won its first eight.
Perhaps more importantly to the players, it was the second straight win over Basic.
“My parents graduated from (Basic) and my cousins are still playing there,” Blakely said. “We were all down but I kept myself up because I knew at the end of the we were going to win this game no matter what. We were going to continue to be undefeated.”
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Contact Justin Emerson at jeme
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