{"id":2448445,"date":"2019-09-07T20:16:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T02:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/injuries-derail-aspen-football-in-season-opening-loss-to-bayfield\/"},"modified":"2019-09-07T20:16:01","modified_gmt":"2019-09-08T02:16:01","slug":"injuries-derail-aspen-football-in-season-opening-loss-to-bayfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/injuries-derail-aspen-football-in-season-opening-loss-to-bayfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Injuries derail Aspen football in season-opening loss to Bayfield"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aspen\u2019s Dillon Hendrickson reaches for a pass as his teammates watch him from the sidelines during the game against Bayfield High School on Saturday, September 7, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
KELSEY BRUNNER<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A halftime lead evaporated in a hurry for the Aspen High School football team after injuries derailed a promising start in Saturday afternoon\u2019s season opener against Bayfield on the AHS turf.<\/p>\n

Junior quarterback Tyler Ward took the Skiers into the locker room up a touchdown against the 2017 state champions but didn\u2019t play in the second half because of an apparent shoulder injury, one of many key injuries that helped the Wolverines rally for a 37-20 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen one of the best quarterbacks in the state doesn\u2019t play, things kind of swung in our favor and that\u2019s what happened,\u201d Bayfield coach Gary Heide said. \u201cI can\u2019t say what would\u2019ve happened. I know he\u2019s a great football player and they rally around him. I know how it goes. But I think we would have battled and played real tough the second half and made it a real close game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ranked No. 7 in Class 2A and playing on its new state-of-the-art turf field for the first time, Aspen was looking for revenge against the Wolverines, a team it led 8-7 at halftime a season ago before losing 20-8 in Bayfield. The Skiers\u2019 only points in the 2018 contest came via the defense, but Saturday\u2019s rematch saw the offense move the ball efficiently for much of the first half.<\/p>\n

After an initial three-and-out, Ward, who led all of 2A in passing as a sophomore, capped of a scoring drive with a 3-yard touchdown pass to senior Jon Haisfield for an early 8-0 lead. Bayfield did provide a quick answer, scoring on its next possession on a 10-yard run by junior Cade Carlson to make it 8-7.<\/p>\n

Aspen extended its lead barely a minute later when Ward found Haisfield yet again, this time on a short connection that Haisfield broke loose for a 72-yard score. The Skiers had the opportunity to go up two scores at the end of the first half, but a dropped pass in the end zone as time expired in the quarter kept the score at 14-7 in favor of AHS going into the halftime break.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the game started to fall apart for the Skiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe starters were playing well and then the whittling down began a little bit with those guys,\u201d AHS coach Travis Benson said. \u201cThat\u2019s the testament of great, great teams is the ones that overcome a couple of those adversity-type moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward came out of the locker room not wearing his shoulder pads, meaning Haisfield had to move over from receiver to quarterback. AHS already was playing without its top receiving target, Max Ufkes, and also lost starting running back Jack Seamans during the game. Jonathan Woodrow, their senior do-it-all player, was in and out, as were a handful of others.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were determined to be physical,\u201d Heide said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the great skill to win in any type of aerial or great finesse game. We have to be ground game first and then throw second. We did what we needed to do and I\u2019m really proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayfield wasted little time getting even in the third quarter, a 16-yard TD run by senior Dawson French making it 14-all barely four minutes into the half. The AHS offense did nothing with its first possession of the quarter and the Wolverines made the most of it by coming back with a 1-yard TD run by sophomore Cael Schaefer to make it 21-14 BHS late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Haisfield was intercepted by senior Ethan Morris on a short pass late in the third, which Bayfield turned into a field goal early in the fourth to extend its lead to 24-14 with 11 minutes to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are guys who know what it\u2019s like to play on a state championship team still on the field,\u201d Benson said of a Bayfield team that also went into the 2A playoffs as the No. 1 seed in 2018 before losing in the quarterfinals. \u201cBayfield is a great football team. They aren\u2019t the same Bayfield as last year, but still, they are well coached and they have a lot of pedigree behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the game slipping away, the Skiers received a small miracle when a tipped Haisfield pass fell into the hands of AHS junior Noah Akin, who took it 77 yards for the touchdown to cut the Bayfield lead to 24-20 with 10:06 to play.<\/p>\n

The Wolverines quickly shut the door on a comeback, getting a 12-yard TD run by Schaefer about four minutes later to make it 30-20, and it was a pick-6 by BHS freshman Deegan Barnes less than a minute later that put it away.<\/p>\n

It was quite the bounce-back win for Bayfield (1-1), which was preseason No. 6 in 2A but dropped out of the top 10 this week after a 42-13 season-opening loss to San Juan (Utah) on Aug. 30. San Juan had already played twice prior to beating Bayfield.<\/p>\n

The Wolverines are off next week before playing at New Mexico\u2019s Aztec High School on Sept. 20.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a great performance by both teams. Aspen will rebound,\u201d Heide said. \u201cI know what it feels like. You feel like you\u2019re in mud. Your second (game) you come back. I believe that Aspen will do the same thing, because they got a lot of talent and they got a great coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen (0-1) will enter the week with a lot of uncertainly in terms of player availability. Benson wasn\u2019t sure of the extent of most of the injuries sustained Saturday and who he\u2019d have ready to go next week. Although, Ward did tweet out later Saturday that he had strained his AC joint in his right shoulder and was hopeful to play in Game 2.<\/p>\n

Aspen hosts Class 1A Meeker on Friday night, a team that is 2-0 after wins over Hotchkiss (28-7) and Coal Ridge (40-8).<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of adversity that we had to battle through today and couldn\u2019t seem to pull it through, but we saw some people step up into some pretty big roles,\u201d Benson said. \u201cJonathan Woodrow on all three phases of the game played phenomenal. And Jon Haisfield is the most solid human being I know. He is dedicated to his brothers and he stepped in in a big way. And the O-line, to be quite honest; the O-line played well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basalt (1-0) opened its season Friday night with a 29-7 win over Olathe. The Longhorns host Battle Mountain on Saturday in their home opener.<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen\u2019s Dillon Hendrickson reaches for a pass as his teammates watch him from the sidelines during the game against Bayfield High School on Saturday, September 7, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)KELSEY BRUNNER A halftime lead evaporated in a hurry for the Aspen High School football team after injuries derailed a promising start in Saturday afternoon\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 09:02:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}