Denver South's Pete Williams has rushed for nearly 1,500 yards this season. He was injured in the semifinals last week, but is expected to play against Monarch in the Class 4A championship Saturday.
File photo by Alan Hart
As the first Denver Public Schools team to reach the state football final in 22 seasons,
Denver South coach Tony Lindsay is having some fun with it.
Lindsay was entertaining this week in the championship game press conference at Sports Authority Field at Mile High, where his Rebels will take on
Monarch (Louisville) (11 a.m., Saturday) in a clash of 12-1 teams.
When asked whether he believed the rest of DPS would be rooting for his team, Lindsay quipped: "They better be."
When asked about the health of running back
Pete Williams, who endued a knee injury in a 38-22 win against Mesa Ridge (Colorado Springs) in the semifinals, Lindsay looked directly at Williams, who was at the conference in the Denver Broncos media room.
"Pete, run around the room," Lindsay said emphatically, indicating his running back was good to go.
MaxPreps Colorado Class 4A state brackets Yes, spirits are high, and both teams seem to have a strong balance of looseness and seriousness as game day approaches.
It will be the dual-threat offense of South against a Monarch squad that is proud and deep-rooted in its one-dimensionality of the run game. When Monarch coach Phil Bravo was given the light-hearted inquiry about whether the Coyotes were secretly planning to throw 60 times, the coach deadpanned: "Maybe in the pre-game."
South has managed to overcome a Week 3 injury to University of Colorado-bound running back
Phillip Lindsay. Williams has since taken over and rushed for 1,474 yards and 17 touchdowns.
When Williams was injured in the semifinals, brawny sophomore
Trevonte Tasco took over and rushed for touchdowns of 5 and 22 yards.
"We have backs like that. We do," Lindsay said. "You saw when Pete went down, we put in another bruiser. And if he went down, we'd have another one. We're blessed with those. But I like Pete."
The South passing game also has operated fluidly this season, as multi-threat quarterback
Malik Tollerson entered the Mesa Ridge game with 19 touchdowns through the air and 12 on the ground. Then he ran for two more and threw for another.
Top wideouts
Kerrian Chambers and
Orlando Mosley have accounted for a combined 16 touchdowns. South also boasts impressive size on the line, including 6-foot-6 Sudanese defensive end
Samuel Mabany.
Bravo termed the Rebels' size and depth similar to that of a junior college program. But his own Monarch squad isn't too bad, either.
Top running back
Ethan Marks has rushed for 1,789 yards, including a gutsy 41-carry, 164-yard performance against Pueblo West in the semifinals. The Coyotes capped the 14-6 win against the top-seeded Cyclones with a 23-play drive that ate up most of the fourth quarter. Marks carried 18 times on the drive.
The Monarch defense, featuring cornerback
Geoff Clary and defensive lineman
Jon Sanders among others, also is operating at peak efficiency. Limited the high-flying Cyclones to single digits was a grand accomplishment, considering Pueblo West had torched a stout Windsor defense for 50 points in the quarterfinals.
The Coyotes understand they have perhaps their biggest challenge yet in well-balanced South.
"That's what they are is just a great pool of athletes, real big, real physical, and we have to just come out and match that," Monarch linebacker
Colin Hart said.
Added defensive end
Travis Gamblin: "They've got great speed and big guys on the line, but we're a great defense and we can rally together."
It's tough to glean much from the teams' common opponents in this one. Denver South's lone loss was 31-6 to Broomfield, a team Monarch ransacked 42-7. But Denver South upended Wheat Ridge twice, and the Farmers accounted for Monarch's sole defeat (12-7 in Week 2).
Each team defeated Kennedy, Standley Lake and Montbello this season. Despite the all the common opponents, the teams have never met. Monarch was unearthed in 1998 — Bravo has been the coach since the Coyotes' inception — or eight years after the last DPS team to appear in a title game.
In 1990, the DPS's Thomas Jefferson qualified but lost 28-14 to Longmont in the 5A game. Thomas Jefferson defeated Montbello 34-32 in an all-DPS final in 1989, accounting for the district's most recent title-winner.
As for South, the Rebels haven't won since 1958, when they defeated Pueblo Central 7-6 in the AAA game.
This is Monarch's third appearance in the final. The Coyotes defeated Golden 42-35 in 2002 (of note, then-Golden quarterback Mark Melancon now is a reliever for the Boston Red Sox). Monarch lost 21-14 to Pueblo West in 2007.
