So far, playing at home hasn’t turned out very well for the Boerne Champion football team.
The Chargers entered Friday’s contest at Boerne ISD Stadium without a win at home, and New Braunfels made sure that streak stayed alive after the Unicorns defeated Champion, 27-17.
Champion is 0-3 at home and slips to 3-3 overall. The Chargers are 1-1 in district and have a short week as they face MacArthur on Thursday in San Antonio.
Chargers coach Blane Ellis said they need to play better at home. They’ve lost to Smithson Valley, Laredo Alexander and now New Braunfels at Boerne ISD Stadium.
“That’s something we have to fix,” he said. “Our community deserves better than that and we’ve got to figure out a way to win at home.”
Injuries and turnovers hurt Champion in Friday’s game. The Chargers lost starting quarterback Julian Navarette for the second time this season after the junior signal caller left in the first half and appeared to reinjure the ankle he hurt in the Smithson Valley game a few weeks ago.
Alexander Sansone was having quite a game on the defensive side for the Chargers but also left the game with an apparent shoulder injury.
Ellis said injuries are tough but noted that’s not why they lost.
“We made too many mistakes; I don’t want to use injuries as an excuse,” he said. “We’ve got to do better. We turned the ball over three times offensively, and we just can’t do that.”
Champion held the early lead at 7-0 after Navarette’s replacement, Ryder Flugence, entered and tossed a 31-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Brogan Dempsey.
New Braunfels answered on its next drive after Levi Golla tossed a 27-yard strike to Grant Franklin in the corner of the end zone on a jump ball to tie it up late in the second.
Champion’s next possession resulted in an interception, and the Unicorns took advantage of a short field and scored with less than a minute left before halftime on a Golla 3-yard run that put New Braunfels up 14-7 at the break.
In the third quarter, Cade Vick intercepted a pass for the Chargers and returned it 50 yards to the Unicorns’ 6-yard line. Flugence scampered in from there on the first play after the pick, and it was tied at 14-14 after the Carter Thompson kick.
The Unicorns scored 10 points on their next two drives, with the field goal set up by a Champion turnover.
NB running back Brock Stewart rumbled in from 23 yards early in the third for the 21-14 advantage and then the Unicorns fell on a Charger fumble later in the quarter, which set up a Joshua Hinton 28-yard field goal to bump the lead to 24-14 by early in the fourth quarter.
Champion’s next possession resulted in a 21-yard field goal from Thompson with 7:49 left on the clock to make it a one-possession game at 24-17. That Champion drive covered 67 yards, and they picked up 53 of those yards on a Zachary Garcia run to set up shop at the Unicorns 4.
With 7:43 remaining, the Unicorns drained 4:44 off the clock and capped the drive with a 42-yard field by Hinton to make it a two-possession game again with less than three minutes left.
On their next drive, the Chargers moved the ball down to the New Braunfels 35 but couldn’t convert a 4th and 10 and gave the ball back to the Unicorns, who milked the final 1:22 off the clock to secure the win.
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