Bryan Berens and Ray Polk are but distant memories now.
If the Phoenix Brophy defense keeps playing like this, it
won’t matter. The Broncos stifled the Las Vegas Bishop
Gorman offense all night, coming a missed tackle away from a
shutout in a 16-6 win in the Sollenberger Classic on
Saturday at University of Phoenix Stadium.
“Our defense really came to play tonight,” Brophy coach
Scooter Molander said.
Last year, the Broncos won the state title behind the arm
of quarterback Berens and the running of Polk. But it was a
swarming Brophy defense led by Trent Murphy that held Bishop
Gorman — a defending state champion that went 14-0 last
season — to 125 total yards.
The number would have been much lower if not for a
79-yard touchdown run by Bishop Gorman quarterback John
Huber late in the first quarter. He broke a tackle at the
line of scrimmage and then outraced Brophy defenders up the
left sideline to cut a deficit to 7-6.
Murphy blocked the point-after attempt, and that was it
for the Bishop Gorman offense.
Neither offense looked good in the second quarter, and
Brophy took a 9-6 lead into intermission when Bishop Gorman
elected to take a safety instead of attempting to punt out
of its own end zone.
Fumbles by Brophy and bad punts by Bishop Gorman gave
both teams opportunities in the second half, but neither
team could capitalize until the Broncos capped the only
sustained drive of the game with an 8-yard pass from Beau
Maggi to A.J. Steimel with 54 seconds left to seal the
victory.
“We won a tight game, and I’m proud of our guys,”
Molander said.
Maggi and Sam Quinif split time under center, both with
limited success.
Qunif was 8-for-11 for 80 yards. Maggi went 6-for-10 for
39 yards with a touchdown and interception.
“I was proud, at certain points, how both of them
played,” Molander said.
Maggi threw an interception on his first pass, but
settled down and seemed to get better as the game went
along. He didn’t play football last season.
“We’ve just got to find ourselves,” Maggi said. “As long
as we’ve got that defense with us, we’ll be fine.”
Maggi said the prospect of playing the Nevada state
champions was intimidating at first, before putting it in
perspective.
“We saw who they were, and we were like, 'Whoa, these
guys are big,’ ” Maggi said. “But so are we. They didn’t
know anything about us. We were in the same position. We may
as well be the bigger dog.”
The past two winners of the Sollenberger Classic have
gone on to win state titles in Arizona.