LONGMONT — Throughout its first few games of the season, Mead football was the giant in Class 3A that nobody could seem to take down. Holy Family’s Kaden Hopkin was the asteroid the Mavericks didn’t see coming.
The last three minutes of Friday’s game had the Mavericks — who were ranked No. 2 in the Colorado Preps media poll — crashing back to Earth in their 27-21 loss to the seventh-ranked Tigers.
They led 21-14 up to that point.
The Tigers stared down a third and 15 — and their second consecutive loss along with it — when their sophomore quarterback threw up a prayer to Roman Ochs with the clock ticking ever closer to zero. Ochs answered it by taking it 78 yards into the end zone.
Then they failed on the 2-point conversion. That was with two minutes, 42 seconds remaining. Their defense gave them one last shot to complete their comeback, and Hopkin, once again, was just what the doctor ordered.
He connected on a 38-yard play to Nick Leopardi to put the Tigers up with 18.2 seconds left. Mead didn’t have any time to respond.
“I knew Nick was open on that guy all night, and me and him have had a connection since seventh grade,” Hopkin said. “Me and him have completed that pass many times and tonight, we completed it and made it happen. We knew it was going to be a dogfight. We knew we had to come out, do our job, do our best and just play as a team — offense and defense having to work together.”
Not only did the Tigers hand the Mavericks their first loss of the season, but they achieved something no opponent had before them. They actually let their offense fly.
In Mead’s first four games, its defense allowed a grand total of 15 points while its offense dropped 175. It seemed no one could score on the Mavericks. The first half of Friday night’s contest followed much of the same pattern.
The first sign of trouble came near the end of the second quarter, when Chase Brandstatter cut a 13-0 Maverick lead in half with a pick 6 and stole all of the momentum that the Mavericks had been building. Iker Alfaro further took the wind out of Mead’s sails when his short scoring run gave the Tigers their first lead of the game, 14-13, with 4:50 left in the third quarter.
They never once panicked. Not when Mead stopped them on a 4th and 1, and not when it hit them back with four minutes left.
“We’re seeing what we’re capable of,” Hopkin said. “It’s knowing what we can do and having some fun.”
The win for the Tigers (4-1) came just a week after they suffered a 35-14 beating at the hands of No. 10 Pueblo East while the Mavericks, also 4-1, got a taste of their first real adversity. Holy Family will head back home to host Littleton next Thursday, while Mead will look to rebound against Timnath on the same night.
“That’s a rivalry game right there,” said Mead’s Eli Davis, who scored the Mavericks’ first two touchdowns. “We went into it kind of thinking it was going to be an easier game than it was. I think 3A football is very competitive. We have a very competitive group this year, and we know there’s very competitive teams out there that we’re looking forward to playing and seeing in the playoffs. I think we realize that now.
“It’s a really good wake-up call. Last year, our wake-up call was Windsor. We lost that game and it kind of got us going again, which we really needed. I think this game is something we needed because you can’t win them all.”