No. 1 Horizon and No. 2 Salpointe spent the better part of the first quarter of the 5A state championship held in Sun Devil Stadium Friday night trading punts. In all, the teams combined for five kicks, with Salpointe giving up three of them, but the Huskies broke through the defensive battle with a 17-yard strike from Skyler Partridge to Ethan Tinsley with 22 seconds left in the quarter for a lead the Huskies would never give up. Salpointe continued to struggle to move the ball with consistency and the Huskies stayed just out of reach from there for the 38-28 final.

Horizon (12-2) picked up the first state title in program history since 1994 and Salpointe (11-3) took second place for the third time in the last five years after winning it all in 2013. This was the sixth semifinal appearance for the Lancers dating back to 2016 with two of those finishes coming in the Open Division during the “Bijan Robinson” era.

Horizon, on the other hand, finished 3-3 last year and the program lost three straight first round games before that. Horizon hired former Marana head coach and, more recently, Hamilton assistant Andy Litten in January and the architect behind the offensive threat at Marana, with current ASU quarterback Trenton Bourguet putting up big numbers, and the vaunted Hamilton offense was onboard. The result? Partridge threw for over 2,500 yards this year with over 30 TDs and Wesley Lambert came up just shy of 2,000 yards on the ground.

Andy Litten. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

“I'm just so proud of the growth that he (Partridge) made from week to week to week that he had to make in our offense,” Litten said on the outburst from Partridge. “We had a short period together he was excited about the offense when we started.”

Partridge hit Cole Linyard on a 66-yard strike and Horizon led 14-0 with 10:34 in the half and then Lambert scored from up close to give the Huskies a 21-0 lead at the break. Salpointe responded with a 17-yard TD run from Anthony Wilhite to cut the lead down to 21-7 with 6:27 left in the third and then a blocked punt and recovery from Damian Coley made things interesting with the Lancers cutting the gap down to 21-14 with 5:20 left in the third but the Huskies kept going.

Partridge had four main targets this year and three of those hit paydirt Friday night including Chase Jung. Jung caught a 9-yard TD pass from Partridge to make the score 28-14 with 5:20 left in the third and it looked like the Huskies had an answer for every move the Lancers made. Grady Gross connected on a 28-yard field goal with 8:41 left in the game and the 31-14 lead looked to be too much to overcome.

Treyson Bourguet finished the night with 202 yards on 16 of 27 attempts and 37 of those yards came on a pass to Gage Felix to put the Lancers back in business with 6:46 left. But, like clockwork, the 31-21 lead went to 38-21 after Partridge took off and scored on his own on a 40-yard scamper with 4:20 left.

Bourguet punched the ball in two minutes later but time ran out and Horizon came away with the 38-28 victory. Bourguet finished his senior campaign with over 2,100 yards passing and 30 TDs and he also rushed for over 600 yards to compliment the 1,500 yards rushing from Wilhite. Wilhite ended the night with 121 yards on 19 carries with a TD and Felix collected 130 yards through the air on 10 catches.

If there was an MVP honor then Partridge would have to be it with 278 yards passing on a 25 for 33 night with three TDs. Linyard caught 15 passes for 189 yards and Lambert rushed 33 times for 143 yards. Lambert was the workhorse with an average of 4.3 yards on the night which helped keep the clock running.

Litten played high school ball for legendary championship coach Wayne Jones of Mountain View Marana and he spent some time at the University of Arizona under Dick Tomey so his Tucson ties run deep.

“I'm going to guarantee you that I probably have a call from Wayne Jones,” Litten added. “Probably got calls from Matt Johnson (Mountain View) and Justin Argraves (Cienega). I have a lot of friends in there. One thing I'll tell you, I hope that Tucson's really proud of this game, having a Tucson team in it and having a coaching staff that has so much Tucson representation. I had a lot of people reach out to our community, and it's a celebration for Tucson. You can take me out of Tucson, but you can't take Tucson out of me and I love it.”

Litten’s counterpart Eric Rogers is in his second year with the Lancers and he has been able to pull some magic of his own in the time with an impressive semifinal finish in the Open Division last year followed by his dominating performance this fall.

Rogers reached this level of success with a crew of working class athletes that Bourguet describes as “family.” Bourguet controlled the offense from his QB position but his family might not have made it this far without the play of Dylan Dreis who made the transition from QB to receiver to help his school. Included in that group of young athletes is senior LB Davian Miranda Carrasco. Carrasco is the recipient of the Impact Award given out by the Grand Canyon Gridiron Club due to his work in the Tucson community.

5A power Saguaro (11-1) is competing in the Open Division this fall and the Sabercats upset national power Hamilton in the semifinals last week. Saguaro will face Chandler for the state championship Saturday evening at Sun Devil Stadium at 5 p.m.