Yuma High School’s football team made a quick exit from the Class 1A playoffs on a cold night in Arvada, Saturday.
The 42-0 loss to the second-seed Forge Christian Fury ended the Outlaws’ season with a 4-6 record. It is the second straight losing season for the program, which has nevertheless made the postseason each year.
Based on past results in 2024, Forge Christian might be the only 1A team that could seriously challenge No. 1 Wray in this postseason. Both have very similar resumés in regards to dominating all opponents, though Wray does play in a tougher overall conference.
The opening weekend of the postseason turned into a series of Sunday and Monday football across most classifications thanks to last week’s storm featuring feet of wet, heavy snow.
Yuma initially was supposed to play at Forge on Friday night. It was pushed back to 4 p.m. Saturday, then pushed back one last time to a 6 p.m. kickoff.
Wray’s game with 16th-seed North Fork was pushed to Sunday, and played at Eaton. It mattered little as the Eagles cruised to a 48-14 win, and now will play eighth-seed Highland on Saturday. Third-seed Limon outlasted Platte Valley 20-10 Sunday evening at Strasburg, sixth-seed Wiggins won Sunday at home against Colorado Springs Christian, 49-12, and 13th-seed Holyoke made the long trip to fourth-seed Centauri to pull out the 33-30 upset Monday afternoon.
That puts four North Central teams into the eight-team quarterfinals. Burlington joined Yuma on the losing side, dropping a 21-7 decision at fifth-seed Buena Vista, Sunday afternoon.
One quarterfinal will feature a North Central showdown as Limon plays Wiggins. Holyoke will play Buena Vista. Forge Christian plays seventh-seed Meeker, which beat Monte Vista last Saturday.
Yuma was sitting at 4-3 after an exciting 28-22 comeback win over Holyoke in the Outlaws’ Homecoming game last month. However, they never scored again after that three-touchdown fourth quarter outburst against the Dragons. Yuma was outscored 121-0 over its last three games, against Wray, Limon and Forge — the top three seeded teams in 1A.
It was over early last Saturday as the Outlaws trailed 42-0 by halftime as the Fury scored 21 points in each of the first two quarters.
Two of Forge’s touchdowns came on punt returns, both by Quentin Torres. The Fury opened the scoring on a 59-yard touchdown run, and added a 27-yard TD run int the first. They scored on a short run and a short pass in the second quarter, along with the punt returns in each of the quarters.
Yuma had 153 total yards, compared to 293 for Forge. The Outlaws ran for 71 yards on 31 carries, and added 82 yards through the air.
Senior quarterback Jonathan Thomson ran for 54 yards on 15 carries, while Daden Beauprez ran for 20 yards on eight carries. Yuma’s other three ballcarriers finished with minus-1 yard. Thomson completed three of 11 passes for 82 yards. Christian Thomson had two catches for 66 yards, and Reyli Trejo one for 16 yards.
Defensively, Beauprez recovered a fumble caused by Tanner Himes, and Lief Sims had a sack. J. Thomson was in on 10 total tackles, Adrian Carranza three, Trejo three, Homes three, Marvin Duarte two, Ethan Nadow two, Jose Mario Ross two, Jesus Gordo two, David Covarrubias one, Beauprez one, Christian Munoz one, and Sims one.
The game ended the high school careers of seniors Jonathan Thomson, Damien Kosinski (who missed the whole season with an injury), Ty Remmich, Adrian Carranza, Christian Munoz, James Brandner, and Daniel Loya.