Fossil Ridge football's best season ever ends in blowout playoff loss to Regis Jesuit

AURORA – Six years of playing football together.

From Preston Middle School to Fossil Ridge High School, where they led the SaberCats to the best season in school history this fall.

The hugs and tears after their final game together were about a lot more than a 63-28 loss Friday night to Regis Jesuit in the second round of the Class 5A playoffs.

They were about all those long hours in the weight room, offseason conditioning drills, practices games. And all that time the seniors spent together off the field, too, hanging out at each other’s homes, eating pizza, playing video games, enjoying each other’s company.

“We’ve been together for six years, man,” senior Bryce Olson said. “We didn’t want it to end tonight. I’m going to miss all these boys; I’ve been with them forever. It’s sad to see it go.”

The ending was a difficult pill to swallow.

A blowout loss that might have been even worse had the final 14-plus minutes not been played with a running clock after the Raiders (7-4) stretched their lead to over 40 points on a touchdown with 4:45 remaining in the third quarter to go up 63-21.

Fossil Ridge (9-3), showing the fight coach Jeff Fulton and players talked about all season, marched down the field and scored another touchdown to trim the final margin and was trying to score again in the two minutes when a scuffle forced officials to separate a couple of players, and the clock ran out before they were able to get it sorted out and resume play.

“It’s been a great four years,” senior quarterback Tyler Kubat said. “It sucks that it ended this way. We all fought as hard as we could, as long as we could, and sometimes it just doesn’t go our way.”

Kubat, who missed four games earlier in the season with a broken collarbone, threw for about 300 yards and four touchdowns with one interception.

Three of those TD passes went to seniors in that tight-knit group – Olson, Domenic Leone and Trek Keyworth – with sophomore Marcus Mozer hauling in the other.

But Fossil Ridge’s defense was no match for the Regis Jesuit offense on the ground, where running backs Albert Medina, Jaden Thermidor and Adin Chase picked up big chunks of yardage just about every time they touched the ball. Medina and Thermidor each ran for touchdowns.

And quarterback Exander Carroll was able to move the ball on the ground and through the air, running for two touchdowns and throwing for four — three to tight end Andrew Metzger.

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The Regis Jesuit defense didn’t have to stop Fossil Ridge often, thanks to the three extra possessions it gained on kickoffs after its scores. The Raiders recovered a pooch kick at the Fossil Ridge 29-yard line after their second score, then scored a couple plays later to go up 21-7.

They recovered another pooch kick that was fumbled by two Fossil Ridge players trying to get a handle on it after their fifth touchdown, turning that into another score for a 42-7 lead.

And after Fossil Ridge scored two unanswered touchdowns, one on a 47-yard “Hail Mary” pass from Kubat to Mozer on the final play of the first half and the other on a 29-yard pass to Leone early in the third quarter, the Raiders tacked on two more quick touchdowns to erase any comeback hopes the SaberCats might have had.

An onside kick after the first one set up the second, making it 56-21 with 7:34 left in the third quarter.

“That was a very tough way to lose,” Fulton said. “They were a better team than us tonight; I give them all the credit. They were much better than us.”

In the next breath, though, Fulton spoke of how fortunate he was to have coached this Fossil Ridge team, particularly the 25 or so seniors who were playing their final game.

“Let me publicly state that I’m the luckiest guy to be able to coach here. It’s a special group of SaberCats.”

Fossil Ridge won a league title last year and matched the best record in school history this season, finishing 9-3.

The SaberCats earned the right to host a Class 5A playoff game for the first time, and they won a 5A playoff game for the first time, too, beating Mullen 45-21 at PSD Stadium in Timnath.

The only other Fossil Ridge team to win as many games was the 2007 squad that also went 9-3. That team also hosted and won a first-round playoff game before losing in the second round, but it was at the Class 3A level just four years after Fossil Ridge’s opening.

“We had some great achievements looking back; that’s what we’ll remember,” Olson said. “We’ll remember tonight, but I’m going to remember all the great things we achieved with this squad.

“I love these guys.”

Kelly Lyell reports on CSU, high school and other local sports and topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, follow him on Twitter @KellyLyell and find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fossil Ridge football's best season ends with blowout loss in playoffs