“This is our time.” That’s one of the final messages Pusch Ridge Christian head coach Kent Middleton gave to his Lions after his fourth-seeded pride beat the top-ranked team in Benjamin Franklin 24-13 Saturday night in the 3A semifinal round held at Mesa High School. The Lions will face No. 2 ALA-West Foothills next Saturday night for the state championship after the Guardians beat No. 3 Thatcher 34-22 in the other semifinal held earlier in the day at the same venue.

Pusch Ridge won a state championship in 2015 under Troy Cropp and that team went 13-1, reeling off 13 straight victories after losing their opening game of the season in big fashion, 28-14 at Benson. Likewise, Middleton’s pride lost 31-7 at Franklin in the second game of the season and the program responded with 11 straight victories, including the 24-13 win in the rematch with the Chargers Saturday night. The difference was the turnovers and defense.

In that first game between the two, Pusch Ridge gave up two fumbles and two interceptions and Gavin Wyler collected 232 yards passing with two touchdowns and Ridge Allen rushed for 154 yards to help guide the program to that huge victory that turned into a power-ranking bonanza with Pusch Ridge finishing the regular season strong. In the rematch, Wyler started out like he finished the first game with a 52-yard connection to Talan Speir on the first play from scrimmage, followed by an 11-yard strike to Speir to set the Chargers up at the Lion 17 but a fumble on the third running play from there landed in the hands of Pusch Ridge QB/OLB Jacob Newborn and one had a feeling a new script was about to be written.

Newborn guided Pusch Ridge on an 80-yard scoring drive off of the fumble and he capped it off with a short run from the four to put Pusch Ridge up 7-0 with 3:56 left in the first quarter.

“Coach Middleton and I were talking about that before the game, you know, we were very aware of the fact that we had some takeaways early on in that game and kind of got them out of a groove,” Franklin head coach Danny Norris said. “Our game plan was not to do that, you know, but we didn't execute very well, and there were just some missed assignments and some things I probably would have done better as a coach.”

A series of punts followed with Ashton Grant of Franklin and Tyler Nolan of Pusch Ridge booming kicks back and forth until the Lions came up with an interception from Cruz Corona in the end zone to end another drive that began on a 48-yard pass from Wyler to Speir.

The punt game began again until Newborn came up with an interception with 3:29 left in the half to give the Lions a short field and Blake Reed scored from five yards out on a fourth-and-two situation to give the Lions a 14-0 lead with 1:39 left. Levi Adcock ended any hope of a late score in the half by the Chargers with another interception 17 seconds later and the half ended with the Lions in control after the fourth takeaway that netted them 14 points.

The Charger defense came out and held the Lions to a punt to start the second half and the Franklin offense responded with a scoring drive with Speir rushing in from 17 yards out to cut the lead in half at 14-7 with 5:13 left in the third. It looked like the Charger defense would hold again in the next series but Newborn hit Dominic Painter for 42 yards on a long third down to put the Lions at the Charger four where Reed ran the ball in to put the Lions back up 21-7 with 39.8 seconds remaining in the third.

Another series of punts followed until Nolan connected on a 33-yard field goal to put the Lions up 24-7 with 3:23 left in the game. Nolan’s field goal looked like it might have been good from 50 plus yards out and he is part of the new breed of kickers where that is expected and the senior has gathered some college attention including from NAU.

It looked like the Chargers were done, especially after Adcock came up with a sack to give Franklin a third-and-18 situation at the 49 but Wyler came on strong with a 13-yard pass to Speir and then a five-yard pass on a short fourth own play to keep the drive alive. He hit Speir again for 13 more yards to set up a 19-yard touchdown strike to Grant Dutkiewicz for the 24-13 final.

Wyler finished with an unofficial 220 yards passing on the night and the sophomore threw for over 2,000 yards on the year. The Chargers will lose the services of Allen (1,486 rushing yards and 20 TDs) and Grant (115 tackles) but Speir returns for his senior year. The nucleus to return to the top is there for Norris.

“We do graduate a great group of 18 seniors, and we have 18 juniors so I think when I got here, the goal was to continue to build upon a program and have a foundation of young men who are excited about playing the sport. And we've done that. We've done that. We have a good group coming back,” Norris added.

For Middleton, his focus is on next week with Chad Mitton and his Guardians, including his son, junior QB Hudson Mitton. Chad’s father, Bill Mitton coached Trevor Browne to three straight championship appearance from 1980 to 1982, beating Ed Doherty and Salpointe 20-0 in the 1981 state final. It will make for a legendary state championship final for sure.

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