November 3rd 2022 – No. 20 Rocky Mountain upsets 13th seeded Mountain Vista in the CHSAA first round state playoff game; meaning Rocky Mountain will move on to play Grandview this Friday.

Rocky Mountain was 6-5 this year, including a blowout loss against Eaglecrest who Grandview beat. All season their roster has been demolished by injuries, including their starting QB missing most of the season. 

In their game against Mountain Vista, they missed 12 players, one of which being their star RB Abraham Chatilla (Jr) who ran for 1486 yards this year (3rd most in Colorado). He will most likely be out again during Grandview’s game, putting sophomore Cody Arnett as the starter, someone who swung most the season, playing most his games on JV

Even with that being said, Arnett ran for 2 TDs against Mountain Vista, being helped by a scary offensive line consisting of senior Ethan Thomason who created nice holes for Arnett all game. Thomason, nicknamed the “Pancake Platoon,” recently committed to BYU and is the 5th ranked player in the state.

Their offense will most likely be very run heavy, with their average passing yards per game being 36.8. However, their starting QB Gage Brock(Sr) was injured most the season and that most likely swayed their offense to be run heavy. With him healthy now, I would expect Rocky Mountain to be more willing to throw. Against Mountain Vista, Rocky Mountain did show a willingness, completing one catch to Junior Cole Honcik for a TD. 

With all this being said, I would not expect their offense to be too scary for Grandview. They still have a lot of injuries and as long as they can stop the run, their offense will stagnate.

On defense, it’s a different story.

They were able to cut Mountain Vista’s dominating offense short last week, coming away with 4 takeaways(3 interceptions and 1 fumble) led by Senior Caleb Wolfe who came away with 2 of the 3 interceptions. On their D-Line,  they have Senior Will Pryor, who led his team in sacks with 8, and also recently committed to The Colorado School of Mines. 

4 takeaways is a lot and definitely impressive, but the weather definitely helped them out. It was a classic playoff snow game that hindered both offenses. If not for the weather, it would have been much harder to stop Mountain Vista.

For Grandview, good run defense should be all they need if they want to defeat Rocky Mountain. Lets just hope they can actually see the field on their film through the thickness of the snow.