Photo by Hunter Franklin ’19 | Brophy players walk off the field as time expires after a missed field goal. Basha defeated Brophy 27-24 Friday Oct. 7 at Phoenix College.
Basha 27
Brophy 24
By Jack Davis ’19
THE ROUNDUP
Basha’s Ryan Kelley threw for three touchdowns to lead the Bears over Brophy 27-24 during the Oct. 8 Homecoming game at Phoenix College.
Kelley threw his first touchdown of the game, a 51-yard pass, to give the Bears a 6-0 lead with 9 minutes left in the first quarter. Noah Williams ’17 blocked the ensuing point-after attempt.
Brophy responded with a lengthy drive. The 11-play drive was capped off byMatt Ryan ’17’s 11-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Kempton ’17. Trevor Eldean ’17 made the extra point to give Brophy a one-point lead.
Brophy held a 7-6 lead at the end of the first quarter.
A Kelley 60-yard scramble set the Bears up for a one-yard touchdown run. The Bears converted the two-point attempt to take a 14-7 lead.
Erik DiMaria ’18 filled in for an injured Noah Pittenger ’17, rushing seven times for 30 yards over the course of a second-quarter drive.
Eldean knocked down a 10-yard field goal attempt to cut down Basha’s lead to four to end the second quarter.
At the half, Basha led Brophy 14-10.
“We just didn’t come out here and execute as well as we could have,”Kempton said. “A lot of botched plays and things like that. There’s just a lot of stuff to clean up.”
Brophy received the kickoff and turned the ball over to start the third quarter, but the Broncos recovered a Basha fumble at midfield.
“We didn’t finish a couple drives,” Mr. Molander said. “We turned it over one time … We had really long drives and both teams really took a lot of time off the clock and so there were very few possessions in this ball game for either team.”
Caleb Moore ’17, in for Ryan, threw a 33-yard pass to Nate Moormon ’17 to set the Broncos up on the one-yard line. Pittenger ran it in for a touchdown to give the Broncos a 17-14 lead with 3:17 left in the third quarter.
Basha responded with a 45-yard touchdown pass, Kelley’s second of the night.
On the next Brophy possession, the Broncos faced a fourth down from Basha’s six-yard line down 21-17. Moore connected with DiMaria for a 6-yard score. Brophy took a 24-21 lead with 2:50 left in the game.
Kelley wasn’t done offensively. He led the Bears down the field and lobbed a 35-yard touchdown to give Basha a 27-24 lead after a blocked extra point attempt.
Moore moved the Broncos down the field, connecting with Elisha Brooks ’19,Nico Nicholson ’17 and Moormon to put the Broncos in field-goal range afterPittenger’s run to the 16-yard line.
But Brophy couldn’t convert on a 34-yard field goal and fell to 7-1.
“We didn’t score enough points on offense, that’s the bottom line,” said head coach Mr. Scooter Molander.
“We had a chance there at the end to tie it up and to go overtime,” Mr. Molander said. “I’m proud of our guys, we didn’t quit, we fought … We didn’t get it done.”
Kempton said that the team is focused on improving.
“It’s a little humbling, this loss,” Kempton said. “We’re still having a great season. Obviously, you never want to lose but this just shows us that we can still always improve. We’re going to keep improving.”
