Flag football 5A state tournament begins at Trailblazer Stadium

LAKEWOOD — Appropriately, Chatfield officially kicked off the first CHSAA-sanctioned Class 5A girls flag football state tournament Wednesday at Trailblazer Stadium.

The No. 13-seeded Chargers — state champions during the first pilot year in 2022 — defeated No. 20 Arapahoe 27-13 in a first-four playoff game.

“It was really fun because it was my seniors that started with me from the start. They were sophomores when we won,” Chatfield coach Alexis Rosholt said. “It was really cool to be apart of the first state championship and now our first win in (CHSAA sanctioned) playoffs.”

Seniors Alexis McClellan, Caitlin Dennis, Georgia Gilmore and Jaden Lodice were all members of that state championship team two years ago.

“I feel like we are a really good group of seniors,” McClellan said. “We are all really good friends outside of flag too.”

McClellan threw a trio of touchdowns in the win over the Warriors (7-9 record). Chatfield and Arapahoe met up earlier this season with the Chargers taking an 18-12 victory.

“We love playing Arapahoe. It’s always a really fair and clean game. Their coaching staff is awesome,” Rosholt said. “We were excited to pull them and have a good game.”

The scoring actually opened with sophomore Sadie Goodwin throwing a deep touchdown pass to sophomore Jenna Lee with 7:57 left in the first quarter. McClellan hit Lee for her second touchdown catch in the first half to make it a 14-0 lead with 3:46 left before halftime.

Arapahoe answered with a touchdown throw from freshman Whitney Foulger to sophomore Gwen Jurbala with 9.1 seconds before halftime.

However, Chatfield (8-8) had a nice opening drive to start that second half that ended with a touchdown pass from McClellan to Lodice to make the score 20-6.

“We haven’t really got our groove together this season,” McClellan said. “This game we felt like we put everything together. The offense and defense was clicking on both sides of the ball. It was a really good win.”

Arapahoe cut it to a 1-score lead midway through the fourth quarter, but McClellan hit Goodwin for a long touchdown with 3:52 left in the game to seal the win.

“That felt so good,” McClellan said of her 56-yard touchdown pass to Goodwin. “It felt good to have that one big drive and then chewed up the clock on that last drive.”

The Chargers ran out the clock after Arapahoe turned the ball over on downs.

Chatfield will face No. 4 Cherry Creek (14-1) in a first-round game at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, back at Trailblazer Stadium. The Bruins grabbed a 33-16 win over the Chargers earlier this season.

“We were hoping for that,” Rosholt said of facing Cherry Creek. “We played them early on in the season. We have pretty much changed everything since that game. It will be fun to put it up against them.”

Jeffco Public Schools’ district stadiums will be the mecca for the 5A and 4A girls flag football state tournaments over the next two weekends.

Jeffco and Trailblazer stadiums — near 6th Ave and Kipling St. — will host the first round and quarterfinals for the 5A state tournament Saturday, Oct. 26. Both stadiums will host six games starting at 9 a.m. Saturday. The 4A first round and quarterfinals will be played this Saturday at the North Area Athletic Complex — HWY 93 and 64th Parkway in Arvada — football and soccer stadiums.

The semifinals and championship games will be played at Jeffco and Trailblazer stadiums on Saturday, Nov. 2.