2024 High School Football

Frog & Firkin’ Football Friday: PRCA reaches third 3A semifinal in Middleton’s five years as coach

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Pusch Ridge celebrates earning its 11th victory of the season and advancing to the 3A state semifinals for the third time in five years (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)

Three times now in the 3A semifinals for Pusch Ridge under fifth-year coach Kent Middleton with each appearance occurring every other year.

The No. 4 Lions defeated No. 12 Surprise Paradise Honors 38-6 on Friday night at Pusch Ridge, setting up a rematch with top-seeded Queen Creek Franklin on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Mesa High School.

Franklin (11-1) defeated Pusch Ridge (11-1) by a score of 31-7 at Queen Creek in the second game of the season Sept. 6.

“We’ve just got to play our game; that’s it,” said senior receiver/cornerback Elliot Lovett, who had two interceptions and caught four passes for 55 yards with a touchdown in the win over Paradise Honors.

Three sets of teams under Middleton have played their game and reached the semifinals in 2020, 2022 and now 2024.

The year separation within each time means generally a new wave of players and some changes in the coaching staff.

The Mustains (Tyler and Bubba), the Grajedas (Javier and Abraham), Evan Lovett (Elliot’s brother), Ryan Fontaine, Will Way, Bryce Jewell, Tyler Drescher, Brysen Barrios, etc., played to a high level at the outset of Middleton’s head coaching career. Their graduation did not set Pusch Ridge back.

The Lions keep regenerating their success.

The one constant is Middleton and some of his assistants who are longtime friends and allegiances — offensive assistant Lamar Lovett (father of Evan and Elliot and former Arizona receiver along with brother Lamont, the Wildcats’ radio analyst), associate head coach/special teams coach Calvin Knox and offensive coordinator Brent Bartz.

“There may have been the thought out there that when the Ways, the Mustains and all the high-profile players left, there would be a little bit of a dip here,” said Middleton, who is 45-12 in his five years at Pusch Ridge. “We’ve got good players … we’ve got really, really good football players.

“A tribute to them (the former players) being here, other kids said, ‘Hey, I want to play football there,'” and that’s been a constant. We’ve got really, really good football players.”

The present wave of “really, really good football players,” includes quarterback/safety Jacob Newborn, Elliot Lovett, running back/linebacker Blake Reed, running back/linebacker Sawyer Allen, defensive ends Charles Palmer and Aaron Kenworthy, linebacker Tyler Shoaff, and wide receiver/linebacker Noah Miller.

Newborn once again was highly effective against Paradise Honors with his arm and legs as one of the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the state.

He completed 12 of 19 passes for 154 yards with two touchdowns and rushed 11 times for 43 yards.

Reed was dominant out of the backfield, running nine times for 87 yards, 47 of them on a touchdown run that opened the scoring with 5:23 left in the first quarter.

After Pusch Ridge’s defense forced a three-and-out, the Lions immediately scored again on a 22-yard pass from Newborn to Erik Rafacz with 1:41 remaining in the first quarter, putting the Lions ahead 14-0. A 17-yard pass from Newborn to Elliot Lovett helped keep that drive going.

Lovett then stopped Paradise Honors’ next possession with an interception. His two interceptions in the game gives him four for this season.

“Basically, it was the coach’s game plan; he put me in the right position and I got the picks,” he said.

His first interception gave Pusch Ridge the ball at the Paradise Honors 12. Five plays later, Reed scored again on a 2-yard run with 11:12 left in the second quarter to increase the lead to 21-0.

A gamble for Paradise Honors on its next possession, faking a punt on fourth-and-10 at its own 44, paid off with Nolan Rau completing a 36-yard pass to Preston Brown.

The Panthers, who ended their season at 7-5, ultimately turned the ball over on downs at the Pusch Ridge 3.

The Lions’ defensive front harassed Rau all game and limited Paradise Honors to 21 yards rushing and 170 overall.

“We have an excellent two middle linebackers (Shoaf and Allen), our DB’s can hold anybody and our D-line is the best that’s even been through,” said Palmer, who chased Rau throughout and was part of two sacks. “Since (losing to) Ben Frank, we’ve had like a total of 20 points on us, so many games … I think nobody can handle the defense.”

Pusch Ridge has actually outscored its 10 opponents 427-34 since allowing 31 to Ben Franklin in its lone loss two months ago.

“They’re always a well-coached team,” Paradise Honors coach Josh Goodloe said of Pusch Ridge. “They’re disciplined, they’re physical, they get to where they they need to be. (Middleton) does a great job coaching them up every year, with the kids he gets.

“I wish him luck, and I know they’ll go do good things next week.”

The Lions, utilizing some of their reserves late in the fourth quarter, nearly pitched a shutout against Paradise Honors but the Panthers scored as time expired on a 10-yard pass from Rau to his brother Caeden Rau.

The game was practically out of hand by halftime with Pusch Ridge ahead 28-0 following a 9-yard touchdown pass from Newborn to Elliot Lovett with 12 seconds remaining in the first half.

The play was set up after Levi Adcock recovered a fumble at the Paradise Honors 20 with 58 seconds left in the half.

A 33-yard field goal by Tyler Nolan capped the first possession of the second half and Pusch Ridge scored for the last time on its next possession — a 37-yard pass from Newborn to Dominic Painter.

“Every team we’ve had here plays well, plays hard, does a good job,” said Middleton, who was an assistant coach for almost 30 years at various schools before hired as the head coach at Pusch Ridge in 2020.

“When you make it to the state semis, that’s a blessing for us. We’ve done it a couple of times before this and hopefully this time we can go a little bit farther.”

Paradise Honors can take solace and some momentum into next season by knowing it made the postseason despite losing a large senior class from last season’s team that advanced to the 3A state championship game and lost to Sabino in a shootout by a score of 68-46.

Prolific-passing quarterback Gage Baker passed for 6,045 yards and 91 touchdowns in that dream season a year ago. Now, he’s at South Dakota Mines University.

“This team put a lot of hard work in this year,” Goodloe said. “I’m proud of them and their effort. A lot of people didn’t think we would even make it back because we graduated so many kids last year. It’s testament to these guys and their hard work and everything they’ve done this year.

“When I became the coach five years ago, they were coming off of four wins in two years. Since then, we’ve been to two quarterfinals and a state championship game. It’s just a testament to these kids who bought in and believed in the culture and everything we built. I’m proud of them and everything we’ve done here with this program.”

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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.

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