3A: PUEBLO EAST 35, DISCOVERY CANYON 6
Bryson Torres runs for two touchdowns and Luc Andrada runs and throws for another two scores as the Eagles stuff and stymie Discovery Canyon’s dynamic Josh Tomjack for a 35-6 victory in the title game.
colorado springs» Discovery Canyon’s Josh Tomjack, one of Class 3A’s most dynamic playmakers, squirted through a hole on the team’s opening drive and plowed through a tackler on his way to the end zone.
But Pueblo East had the perfect rebuttal: swarm faster and hit harder.
The second-ranked Eagles stuffed and stymied Tomjack and the No. 1 Thunder the rest of the way, leading to a 35-6 win in the Class 3A state title game Saturday.
Bryson Torres added two rushing touchdowns, Luc Andrada threw and ran for another two, and the Eagles (13-1) and their yellow-clad fan base strolled out of District 20 Stadium with a third consecutive title in hand.
Discovery Canyon (13-1), meanwhile, continued to struggle against East in season rematches. In the eighth game in four years, the Thunder holds a 3-1 advantage in the regular season but is 0-4 in postseason meetings.
“It’s hard to play the same team two times in a season,” said Tomjack, who ran wild on Pueblo East and scored three touchdowns in a 41-26 win Sept. 16. “They can come back and figure out things quickly.”
Tomjack helped lead an impressive 80-yard drive in the first quarter that included five first downs and a lot of promise. But Pueblo East scored 35 unanswered points, and held the Thunder to less than 65 yards and just two first downs in the final three quarters.
“I don’t know what it is,” Discovery Canyon coach Shawn Mitchell said. “Whatever it is that they do late in the season or whatever it is they do differently the second time around against us — whatever lesson they learned in a loss to us earlier in the season, they just figure it out.”
The Thunder only trailed by one point, 7-6, before Kain Medrano returned a fumble 30 yards to put the Eagles ahead 14-6 early in the third quarter.
A quick three-and-out later, Andrada made it a two-score advantage when he expertly placed a pass into the arms of Tory Koshak down the sideline for 21 yards.
“Everyone was wrapping up, grabbing cloth and swarming,” Medrano said. “We were better than we were when we played them last time.”
Early on, Tomjack scored his 27th touchdown of the season with 2:28 left in the first quarter. The multifaceted senior got a pitch from Tyler McFarland, broke a tackle near the boundary and raced 23 yards for a touchdown, but the lead was only 6-0 following a missed PAT.
Pueblo East responded with an 11-play, 80-yard drive to take a 7-6 lead. Donavin Ada kept it going on third-and-12 with a sprawling catch for 20 yards near the sideline. Torres capped it off with a 3yard score on his third consecutive carry from inside the 9. Pueblo East’s defense had a tall task heading into the Class 3A championship — try to contain a Thunder team that averaged 40.5 points per game in going 13-0, including 41 against the Eagles earlier in the season. After allowing a touchdown on the first drive of the game, it appeared as though not much was going to change in the rematch. But the Eagles put a stop to it, shutting out Discovery Canyon the rest of the game in claiming its third consecutive state title. The Denver Post