3 Idaho high school football games you should not have missed in Week 6 (9/29/2023)
Armando Gonzalez knows football is a what-have-you-done-for-me business.
And after his reigning Class 5A champion Rigby Trojans started this fall at 0-3, he knows more than a handful of supporters located the exit door.
Well, the Trojans are clawing their way back into the picture of statewide relevance. They won their fourth game in a row Friday, taking down Class 4A champion Skyline, 41-21, in Pocatello.
It was the seventh consecutive win by Rigby in the series of heavy hitters.
"That was intentional," said Gonzalez with a chuckle about the team's 0-3 start, with losses to Coeur d'Alene and Utah powerhouses Lehi and American Fork.
"We knew at that point, we have to get back to playing sound football. And at the same time, we knew everyone was forgetting about us."
After Skyline cut it to 28-21 early in the third quarter, the Trojans continued to hit on big plays against the Grizzlies' aggressive defense.
Luke Flowers answered with his 42-yard touchdown pass to Brecken Searle to push the lead to 35-21, and the Grizzlies were not heard from again.
"Credit our guys .... I am not going to say (losing 45-13 and 50-7 to Utah opponents) isn't a blow to the ego," Gonzalez said.
"But the kids bought into the process of what we are doing here. There was no magic-bullet quick fix for this. I told them, this is the one time in life you are going to have to stick to what we've done and keep grinding."
HILLCREST CAPS CRITICAL THREE-GAME STRETCH WIN SHUTOUT
When you can post wins in consecutive weeks over Skyline, Pocatello and Madison - all ranked opponents - you deserve to remain No. 1 in Class 4A.
Riding a defense that plucked the Knights out of trouble time and time again, Hillcrest blanked Madison, 14-0, on Friday night.
The Knights put the game away on Peyton King's 15-yard touchdown pass to Jace Judy in the left corner of the end zone with 1:04 to go.
"Each game wasn't necessarily pretty at times," Hillcrest coach Brennon Mossholder said. "That is what happens against good teams."
Hillcrest grabbed a 7-0 lead in the second quarter on Braxton Battleson's 2-yard touchdown run on fourth and goal.
But as Mossholder declared after the game, "the defense was absolutely lights-out tonight in every which way. The offense put them in bad spots multiple times ... but we got the stops."
POKY ESCAPES ON LATE FIELD GOAL
Stuck in a defensive stranglehold, all No. 3 Pocatello needed was one final drive.
And the Thunder found it in the nick of time.
Garett Keller's 32-yard field goal with 1:30 remaining broke a tie, lifting Pocatello to a 10-7 win over 10th-ranked Shelley.
"We talked about it at halftime that, 'We are not going to score a lot of points,'" Pocatello coach Dave Spillett said. "But I also said, 'It won't take a lot.' I didn't think they would score again."
