Trojans earn first win
Patterson accounts for 7 TDS as Longmont tops Monarch
It took a week longer than the team hoped entering the fall, but the Longmont Trojans got win No. 1 of 2020 in Week 2 on Thursday night.
At Everly-montgomery Field, the Trojans (1-1) came alive and outpaced the tough-running Monarch Coyotes (0-2) for a 47-30 victory. At the heart of that awakening offensive attack was junior quarterback Keegan Patterson, who pitched, shoveled, threw and ran his way to accounting for over 500 yards of total offense and all seven of the Trojans’ touchdowns.
“We played really well this week,” Patterson said. “The line stepped up big time tonight, blocking and giving us a ton of time, and our backs caught the ball really well and ran really hard with the ball in their hands. Then our defense came up with really big stops when we needed them to.”
Patterson, who threw three interceptions in the Trojans’ loss to Brighton last week, threw for three touchdowns and ran for four more. After the game, he gave most of the credit to the Longmont line and his skill position teammates, who racked up tons of yardage after the catch following short forward pitches from Patterson that technically count as passes.
The bulk of Patterson’s passing yardage went to Caleb Johnson, who scored an 80yard touchdown in the second half. Justice Lillie approached the 100-yard mark and scored on a 60-yard play in the first half. Eddie Kurjak scored on a 44-yard catch and the Trojans got plenty of production from other guys like Brendan Barcewski, Matthias
Faas and Jack Moll.
“We want to try to share the ball, spread it out, get it to as many of our playmakers as we can and let them do stuff in space,” Patterson said. “I just have to make sure I’m getting the ball to the right guys and our line did a great job of creating room for them to run.”
Leading 26-24 at halftime after giving up 225 rushing yards in the first half, the Longmont defense slowed the Monarch run game to hold the Coyotes to six points in the final two quarters. Coyotes junior Cole
Carlucci still ran for over 200 yards and pushed his two-game total over 350 rushing yards thus far in 2020.
A five-yard touchdown pass from Monarch quarterback Kyle Gordon to Jackson Petitte cut the Longmont lead to 40-30 with 3 minutes, 33 seconds left in the game. But the Trojans defense stopped a potential two-point run short to keep it a two-score contest and let the offense run out the clock while tacking on an extra insurance score.
“Our defense was huge in the second half,” Patterson said. “We had some big guys come up with some big plays and we needed that from them to get out of here with a win.”
Despite their close proximity, Thursday’s game was the first time the two teams played one another since they met in the first round of the 2010 postseason.
The Trojans will be back at Everly-montgomery Field next Friday when they take on Skyline. The Coyotes will have a home game against Greeley Central next Friday.