Fossil Ridge shuts down Fort Collins High School in season opener

Emily Brey • September 3, 2016

Photo provided by Nick Edrige. Fossil Ridge Football team storms the field.

It’s been four years since the Fossil Ridge Football team walked away from a rivalry game, against the Fort Collins High School Lambkins with the win. On Friday, September 2 under the lights of French Field, the Sabercats showed up and took control of their first game of the 2016 season.

With new Head Coach, Zak Bigelow, the Sabercats came out ready to take on the reining Harmony Cup Champions after finishing last year with (5-5-0) record.

Earlier in the week, senior Ryan Cronin said, “We’ve all been looking forward to this game since what happened last year, and if we stick to what we know, and play like we know how to play, we will be the ones holding the Harmony Cup after the game.” Sure enough, after the final whistle blew signaling the 33-7 win for the ‘Cats, Cronin along with his teammates proudly held up the Cup.

The first 3 plays, returning QB Griffin Roberts ran the ball himself, but after the first possession kicker Evan Bergeson scored the first points of the game, giving Fossil a 3-0 lead early in the game.

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Fort Collins took the ball down the field play after play, after Fossil’s TE Owen Arkin took down their punt returner on the 16 yard line, scoring the first touchdown of the game. The Lambkins took a 6-3 lead — but not for long.

On Fossil’s second possession, Roberts connected with fellow senior Brady Russell after effectively running the ball down the field. Russell ran for 25 yards putting the Sabercats on the 22 yard line. On the next play, Roberts found Nick Edridge in the end zone, putting the Sabercats in the lead once again, with 4:17 minutes left in the half. Bergeson put away the kick for the extra point making the score 10-7.

Chase Mason had a big sack on Fort Collins quarterback, Jonathan Erickson, with 2:12 minutes remaining until halftime. The Sabercats made their way to the locker room holding a 10-7 lead.

After taking the field for the second half, there wasn’t much excitement until the end of the third quarter. Fossil Ridge junior Riley Jones had a huge return on a free kick from Lambkin kicker Nick Robb. Jones’s run resulted in a second touchdown putting Fossil further ahead 19-7 with 1:08 left in the third quarter.

Roberts found junior Calvin Marley in the end zone — Fossil pulled away with a 26-7 lead with 8 minutes left in the game. Following Collins’s possession, senior Brandon Spraberry ran the ball in 14 yards to get the winning touchdown after solid field play by the Cats.

After the game Coach Bigelow commented, “I was really confident coming into this game, we have a very special group of young men. But beating Fort Collins High School wasn’t the goal, we still have a lot of work to do this season. These guys bought in, they worked very hard this summer, they ran, lifted, watched film, they trained like a college football team, and all I can say is that I’m very honored to be the Head coach here at Fossil. I can’t wait for the rest of the season and to keep working with this team.”

It was a great way to start off the season, the next game is Thursday September 8 at 6:00 PM at French Field vs Rocky Mountain High School. Come out and support the team as they take on another crosstown rival.

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About the Contributor

Emily Brey, Sports Editor

Emily Brey is a senior at Fossil Ridge High School who is in her third year on the Etched In Stone staff and is Co-Editor of the Sports BEAT. Emily plays varsity soccer for Fossil and also plays for Arsenal Colorado on the ‘00 Academy team. She is committed to play soccer at Colorado State University - Pueblo and plans to study business and law in college. After attending CSUP, she hopes to attend CU where she will go for her MBA.

Between taking on a full schedule and all of her extracurricular commitments, Emily is a very busy bee this year. Emily is serving as Vice President of FBLA here at Fossil, and is a member of Key Club and NTHS (National Technical Honor Society). She is an ambitious young lady whose reliability, organization, and work ethic has helped her achieve many goals in her time thus far at Fossil Ridge. She is a huge fan of Lana Del Rey and the bands, All Time Low, SWMRS, Waterparks, and The Wrecks. She enjoys spending time outside and organizing things, which relaxes her. When she isn’t covering a story or playing soccer, Emily enjoys being a homebody and watching movies.

The friendly, family-like environment that the journalism program at Fossil encompasses has been something she has valued since freshman year. She would love to be able to continue journalistic work after high school. Emily looks forward to leading the Journalism 1 writers, no matter if that’s in journalism or just life in general. Plus, she hopes to inspire the younger writers to report on other topics besides sports, just because that’s something that she wishes she would’ve done the past two years. Her main goal for the year in journalism is to get better with her coverage, especially with using multiple media platforms. Emily wants to try and expand from her comfort zone of sports writing, hoping to experience writing different journalistic topics.