The seeding in the 5A Conference held true to form with all four of the top seeds advancing to the semifinal round of the state playoffs including No. 1 Horizon which held off No. 9 Cienega 48-21 Friday night at home. Horizon (10-2) will host No. 4 Desert Mountain (11-1) next Friday night for a shot at the state championship game to be played Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. in Sun Devil Stadium.

Cienega (8-4) started the season out 1-3 but the Bobcats won seven in a row from there, including a 47-36 upset win at No. 8 Verrado in the first round last week. That win is still the only upset in the 5A state playoffs entering the semifinal round. Desert Mountain held off No. 5 Sunrise Mountain 17-8 to set up the match with Horizon next Friday. No. 2 Salpointe (10-2) will host No. 3 Desert Edge 10-2) in the other semifinal match.

Horizon senior quarterback Skyler Partridge went 17-25 for 259 yards in the win over Cienega with two touchdown passes. Partridge now has 2,149 passing yards this year and Jr. RB Wesley Lambert added 138 yards on the ground on 21 carries with three TD runs.

“We need to build on what we did this week and have another great week of practice,” Partridge said. “We had the right mindset and our defense really stepped up tonight.”

Led by Jr. QB Brayden Cherry, the Bobcats struck first on a 49-yard pass up the middle to Sr. WR CJ Hangartner to take a 7-0 lead on Horizon with 8:17 left in the first but Lambert ripped off a 37-yard scoring run to tie the game up at 7-7 less than three minutes later.

Cienega was moving the ball on its next possession but a catch, that was later ruled a dropped pass on a long third down, appeared to take the air out of the Cienega sails with Horizon dominating from that point. Lambert scored from close to make it 14-7 with 2:22 left in the first and it looked like the Bobcats got new life after Geo Tobias recovered an Horizon fumble but Casey Hixon returned the favor on a fumble recovery of this own and Lambert scored from 22 yards out to make it 35-7 with 7:21 left in the half. 

In all, Horizon scored off of five Cienega turnovers in the game and that was too much to overcome against the top-seeded team in the conference. The Bobcats did score on a trick play with Cherry handing off to Sr. Brady Beltz and then Beltz tossed it back to Cherry to help bring the score to 38-14 at the half but the deficit was too large at that point.

Cherry finished 20-29 for 201 yards with a TD and Sr. RB Ritchie McCormack picked up 145 yards rushing. Hangartner had 108 yards receiving.

Horizon head coach Andy Litten moved over from Marana a few years ago and Litten was the head coach during the Trenton Bourguet (ASU) vs. Jamarye Joiner (UA) shootouts with the Bobcats getting the best of that series but Argraves was not part of those battles. Argraves replaced Pat Nugent this year at Cienega after Nugent moved over to coach Mica Mountain.

Argraves told his current group of Bobcats that this loss was not a reflection of their season. 

“You guys never gave up and you didn;t quit tonight,” Argraves said. “You made it to the quarterfinals and no one can take that away from you. No one.”

Of the four remaining 5A teams, Horizon won a state championship in 1994, Salpointe won in 2013, Desert Edge won in 2015 and Desert Mountain has never been to a championship final so it will be the end of a log wait for one of the programs.