In last year’s season opener, Mountain Ridge took it on the chin, losing to Skyridge by a whopping 45 points. Though embarrassing at the time, coach Nick Robins believed that early eye opener played a huge role in his team eventually winning 10 games and advancing to 6A semifinals.
“If you don’t put yourself through adversity early in the season, then you’re not going to be ready for the playoffs,” said Robins.
Fast forward to this season, and he loved the idea of another Week 1 test against Skyridge. Win or lose, it would prepare this team for tougher tests down the road.
His team is ready for those tests now.
What Thursday’s rematch revealed is just how much Mountain Ridge has improved in those 365 days — 60 points better, in fact. After last year’s trouncing, the Sentinels used a strong second half to pull away from Skyridge on Thursday for the convincing 41-26 home victory in a game delayed an hour because of weather.
“We’ve been working hard since January,” Robins said. “They put the work in, and we pride ourselves on not being outworked and the work is showing on the field, so I’m proud of those guys.”
Trailing 20-13 at the half, Mountain Ridge outscored Skyridge 28-6 in the second half as it capitalized on several special teams miscues by the Falcons.
Mountain Ridge quarterback Jaxon Hunt, who passed for 4,061 yards a season ago, had another big game through the air with 269 passing yards and four touchdowns.
But the surprise of the night belonged to junior running back Bradley Foster, who went off for 216 yards on 29 carries, with one rushing and one receiving TD.
Foster was expecting to split carries with Taniela Kinikini heading into the game, but Kinikini exited in the first series of the game with what appeared to be a broken collarbone.
The extra workload didn’t faze Foster whatsoever. In fact, he excelled in the expanded role.
“We’ve always known Bradley Foster is a dude, right? He was a JV last year and he was awesome. He would score all the touchdowns. We knew what we had, and I’m just so proud of him and the way he ran the ball,” said Robins.
Foster’s first touchdown, a two-yard reception, early in the second half, tied the game at 20-20. His second on a 17-yard burst around the edge put the game out of reach with 5:13 remaining.
Both of Foster’s TDs came muffed punts after bad snaps by Skyridge, which gave Mountain Ridge short fields to work with.
On the first, Mountain Ridge took over at Skyridge’s 33 yard line, and on the second the 22.
“Once the other team makes mistakes, we’re trying to absolutely stab ‘em in the heart,” Robins said. “Our special teams (have) done a great job. They put a lot of pressure on that punter, and I think we rattled him a little bit.
I’m just so happy the way that all three sides of the ball played well."
In the first half, Skyridge was the team that finished off drives, building a 20-6 lead with 4:46 remaining in the first half as Jagger Fountaine passed for two TDs and rushed for another in his starting debut for the Falcons.
On Mountain Ridge’s ensuing drive, it looked like things might quickly get out of hand for the Sentinels as they were suddenly facing a third-and-12 situation. Hunt dropped back and under pressure had no choice but to heave the ball down field into double coverage for receiver Xander Thayer.
Incredibly, the senior game down with the ball, and after the two Skyridge defenders collided into each other, Thayer raced untouched 82 yards into the end zone to cut the deficit to 20-13.
Mountain Ridge had a chance to chip away at the lead further in the final seconds of the first half after driving the ball down inside the five-yard line, but the drive ended with an interception in the end zone.
Earlier in the half, Mountain Ridge also came up empty in the red zone on a failed fourth-and-two attempt.
“it’s kind of funny because throughout the summer, we kind of struggled in the red zone against our defense,” Robins said. “We gotta do a better job of emphasizing the red zone in practice.
“Two of those drives, yeah, we sputtered down there and we gotta fix that, but I’m so proud of the way we responded in the second half.”