After a one-year absence, the Boerne Champion football team is back in the playoffs, and the Chargers will face Southwest High School Thursday for their first postseason game since 2023.
The Dragons host Thursday’s contest against the Chargers, 7 p.m.
It’ll be a matchup of contrasting teams. Southwest is unbeaten at home and the Chargers are unbeaten on the road.
Champion is 5-0 on the road with wins against Laredo United South, Medina Valley, Seguin, MacArthur and Pieper, while Southwest is 6-0 at home and has defeated Harlandale, Laredo Nixon, Laredo Martin, South San, Eagle Pass Winn and Laredo Cigarroa.
Chargers coach Blane Ellis said the Dragons are having a solid season. They are 8-2 overall and went 6-2 in district to finish second behind district champ John Jay.
“They’re a scrappy team and they have a lot of fight in them,” he said. “They find a way to get things done.”
Southwest prefers to keep the ball on the ground.
“They run a Stack I and they demand a physical game,” he said. “Offensively, they try to play ball control and limit possessions.”
The Dragons were 12-1 last year and went three rounds deep before suffering their only loss of the season to Flour Bluff in the playoffs, 35-28.
Southwest has a history of playing good football and can boast of a Heisman trophy winner coming through its ranks. It’s where Ty Detmer played his high school ball before going to BYU and winning the Heisman.
The Chargers are coming off an impressive win over Pieper last Friday, 51-44. Their win over the Warriors moved them up from fourth to third in the standings and helped them cap the regular season with four straight wins.
At one point in the season, they were 2-2 and started district at 0-1. Things changed after they went into Seguin and won, 57-50. From that point, they won five of their last six, including their last four.
“Going into the Seguin game, we took on a mantra that our back was against the wall,” Ellis said. “We took on a playoff mentality that it was win or go home. Nothing changes from this point either, our message is the same: maintain focus and prepare with humility and respect every opponent.”
Champion continuously hit big plays against Pieper. They opened with a 57-yard TD pass on their first play from scrimmage from Julian Navarette to Brogan Dempsey, while Caleb Farias returned a kickoff 95 yards for a score and then Navarette hit a 45-yard pass completion to Will Burgess to set up another score – and that was all in the first quarter.
In the second period, Navarette connected on pass plays that resulted in touchdowns of 75 and 64 yards to Dempsey and Zach Lopez.
“Pieper runs a 3-safety system and it’s a hard system to prepare for,” Ellis said. “They try to create confusion, but we countered that by putting them in conflict.”
Champion tallied 41 points by halftime, but Pieper adjusted well defensively and limited the Chargers to 10 second-half points.
Still, Champion burned time off the clock over the last two quarters, and put together drives of 9 plays, 7 plays and 14 plays.
Defensively, Roman Flugence came up with two first-half interceptions, one of which led to a touchdown. In the second half, Owen Kuhl also had a pick that resulted in an Owen Thornton TD reception from Navarette, who tossed six touchdowns in the game to five different receivers.
Navarette finished the night by completing 19 of 25 passes for 423 yards, while Dempsey recorded 180 receiving yards on 6 catches, and Burgess added 117 yards on 7 catches.
Garcia finished with 68 rushing yards, and Farias added 66 ground yards, and Ellis said the ground game was key even though the Chargers didn’t score a rushing touchdown.
The coach said the Dragons will try to limit Champion’s big-play ability.
“They’re sound on defense and they run to the ball well,” he said. “They’re a quality defense.”
Ellis said Friday’s game was their best of the year and added that he feels they are peaking at the right time.
“A lot of it is that we’re starting to get healthy,” he said.
Pieper defenders did a lot of trying to chase down Champion receivers last Friday, especially in the first half. Zach Lopez (9) gets behind a Warriors defender on his way to the end zone.
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