SAN ANTONIO — The curtain came down on Boerne Champion’s best football season in six years last Friday after New Braunfels eliminated the Chargers from the playoffs, 41-31.
Champion closes out the year at 9-4, with two of those losses coming to the Unicorns.
In their first meeting on Oct. 10 at BISD Stadium, New Braunfels beat the Chargers by 10 points (27-17), and even though a lot has changed for both teams in the seven weeks between games, the Unicorns were able to beat Champion again by 10 points in the rematch at Alamo Stadium.
Blane Ellis gave credit to the Unicorns for a strong game and added that he was proud of both teams from the district.
“It didn’t fall our way today, but I’m super proud of our kids and proud of New Braunfels,” he said. “They’re a tremendous opponent and do a great job.”
In the playoffs, Champion used fast starts to get ahead of its opponents and did the same thing Friday, but couldn’t maintain the lead against the Unicorns.
On their first series, Champion’s deep threat Brogan Dempsey got behind the defense and Chargers quarterback Julian Navarette found him on a 58-yard bomb just four plays into the game and it was 7-0.
NB answered on its first drive and knotted it up after QB Levi Golla ran it in from nine yards to make it 7-7.
Late in the first quarter, Navarette found Dempsey again, this time on a 41-yard completion that took the ball to the Unicorns 13. The drive stalled at the 11, but Carter Thompson booted a 28-yard field goal for the 10-7 lead.
But the game turned in the second quarter in favor of the Unicorns. Golla tossed three touchdown passes to three different receivers. New Braunfels outscored the Chargers in the period, 21-0, and took a 28-10 lead into halftime.
That left Champion playing catch-up the rest of the way and they couldn’t dig out of the 18-point deficit even though they outscored the Unicorns in the second half, 21-13.
“We struggled in the first half offensively and didn’t score in the second quarter, and defensively we gave up too many points, and you can’t do that against a good team like that,” Ellis said. “At halftime, we made a few adjustments and tried to simplify a couple of things we were doing defensively and offensively. Our focus was ensuring that we could win the line of scrimmage, and we did that in the second half.”
The Unicorns made the deficit 25 points after they scored on their opening drive of the second half and pulled ahead 35-10, but the Chargers climbed back into it and cut it to four points by scoring the next three touchdowns.
Brooks Warrick intercepted a pass, and Champion capitalized after Navarette capped a 13-play drive with a 3-yard run into the end zone, and it was 35-16 after a missed extra point.
The Chargers went with an onside kick and recovered it at midfield. Two plays later Navarette launched a 46-yard pass to Dempsey, who scored, and the lead was down to 35-24 after Navarette and Dempsey connected on the two-point try.
The Unicorns’ next drive ended with a fumble recovered by Inaki Colsa and the Chargers took advantage and scored a few plays later with another Navarete run into the end zone and Champion sliced the lead to 35-31 by early in the fourth quarter.
But Champion didn’t score again after that, and the Unicorns tallied a late touchdown on a 67-yard pass from Golla to Cameron Pitts, and the lead was back to 10 at 41-31 with 4:23 left.
Champion had one last drive and faced a 4th and 7 at the NB 48 but couldn’t convert, giving the ball back to the Unicorns with 2:37 on the clock.
From there, New Braunfels was able to run out the clock to seal the win.
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