FORT COLLINS — After his team narrowly lost in the Class 3A football semifinals to Mead a year ago because of a couple errant kicks, Pomona head coach Nathan Johnson had an offer that Chase Keaton ultimately couldn’t refuse.
Johnson had a spot for Keaton on his football team, as the team’s kicker, if Keaton wanted it.
As the final seconds ticked off the clock during this season’s 3A state football championship, Saturday at Canvas Stadium on the Colorado State University campus, Johnson and his team couldn’t have been any happier that Keaton accepted Johnson’s attractive offer.
Keaton’s picture-perfect 40-yard field goal as time expired gave second-seeded Pomona a dramatic 17-14 victory against top-seeded Windsor.
With that kick, and the nail-biting win, the Panthers secured the third state football title in their school’s history.
“Low key, I was really scared,” said Keaton, a junior who has been playing soccer since he was 3 years old. “I knew everyone was with me. Everyone was going to breathe with me. And, even if I didn’t make it, I knew my team had the hands to handle it in overtime.”
This was the first football title at the 3A level for the Panthers (13-1). Their previous titles came in 4A (1988) and 5A (2017).
Windsor (13-1) was denied an undefeated season and what would have been its fifth state football title in school history.
After the Wizards seemingly seized momentum early in the second half — with a six-play, 39-yard, game-tying drive on the heels of a 40-yard Grady Sullivan kick return — Pomona’s defense completely clamped down on Windsor’s normally unflappable run game.
“There was a couple times that we pulled (the ball) and they just timed it right,” Wizards head coach Chris Jones said. “That might have been their scheme, ‘If that guy pulls, you’re going.’ And they hit us with a couple of losses. And, then we had a couple false starts where instead of it being first-and-10, it was first-and-15.”
Aside from Keaton’s clutch kick, the Panthers can largely thank one other monumental play for their championship victory.
With 1 minute, 9 seconds left before halftime, Pomona broke a 7-7 tie with a timely, tricky halfback pass in which senior running back Luis Santana was handed the ball in the Panthers’ backfield.
Rather than trying to cut upfield and search for wiggle room against Windsor’s swarming defense, Santana looked up to find Panthers junior quarterback Tucker Ingersoll streaking down the right sideline.
The pass sailed about 30 yards through the air before it caromed off the fingertips of a Wizards defensive back right into the waiting arms of Ingersoll. Ingersoll ran the ball about 20 more yards into the end zone.
That play put Pomona up 14-7 and would haunt Windsor the rest of the game, as the Wizards could never again regain the lead.