High school football: Brighton overcomes another QB injury, narrowly beats West for piece of Region 6 title

Averaging nearly 20 carries per game this season, Brighton running back Mason Haertel is used to a busy workload.
Injury circumstances forced him to nearly double that output in Wednesday night’s regular season finale, and he was up to the challenge. The senior carried the ball 37 times for 177 yards and one touchdown as the Bengals narrowly defeated West 7-6 to earn a piece of the region championship.
“The way we did it, that just shows the grit and the toughness of this team. It’s awesome, not everyone gets to do that. So we definitely are humbled by it,” said Brighton coach Casey Sutera.
Brighton and West finish the season tied at 5-1 in Region 6, and Olympus will likely make it a three-way tie assuming it beats Skyline on Friday.
Defense was the catalyst to the region championship on Wednesday as it shut out West’s offense and only allowed 240 yards of offense. The Panthers’ lone touchdown came on a first-half pick six by Chachi Pan.
A bad snap on the extra point after Pan’s defensive touchdown kept West’s lead at 6-0 with 7:29 remaining in the second quarter.
That interception changed the entire complexion of the game as Brighton didn’t throw a single pass the rest of the way.
Three weeks ago, Brighton starting quarterback Ryce Palepoi went down with a broken collarbone in his team’s 31-17 win over East. On Wednesday night, backup quarterback Alex Degroot seemed to suffer the same injury on a third down scramble on Brighton’s second offensive series of the game.
Sophomore third-string quarterback Preston Ferran stepped in and threw one incompletion on his first series — a third and out. On his second series behind center, Brighton faced a third and 20 from its own 11, but instead of a conservative play call Ferran was asked to throw the ball, and Pan easily stepped in front of it for the 18-yard interception return and the 6-0 lead.
“On third and long we probably should’ve run the ball, but you know, what was cool is to see our offense respond that next drive and go get that long run by Mason and get in the end zone,” said Sutera.
From that point on, Brighton’s coaches made a conscious choice to play it safe. It ran 34 offensive plays the rest of the game, and all 34 were running plays.
On Brighton’s next possession after the turnover, it prioritized handing the ball to Haertel, and on the sixth play of the drive he burst right through the middle of West’s defense on an inside zone play and raced 71 yards into the end zone. Thomas Sorensen converted the extra point for the 7-6 lead.
“Trying to tackle him over and over, eventually he’s going to break a couple. The way he runs it’s tough on a defense, it’s just physical and downhill and he’s hard to tackle and guys don’t want to do it throughout the game,” said Sutera.
Three weeks ago when Palepoi got hurt, East went ahead in the second quarter on a pick six off the backup quarterback. Brighton rallied for the win with 17 unanswered points in the second half on a night Haertel racked up 31 carries.
Against West he topped that with 37 carries.
“I just did the best I can do. I just tried to go out there and be confident, don’t scare anyone, put the team on my shoulders and keep running the rock,” said Haertel.
With Brighton leading 7-6 at the half, Sutera said the coaching staff was comfortable leaning on the defense and minimizing risk offensively to try and claim a share of the region title.
“We knew our defense was going to hold strong, it’s kind of been the strength of our team and we just had to kind of hang tight on that and just trust that they were going to keep getting stops,” said Sutera.
In the second half, West’s offense tallied 146 yards, but 50 of those came on the final play of the game as the Panthers successfully converted several laterals to get the ball down to Brighton’s 30-yard line before Louie Hamilton was brought down.