FORT COLLINS — With Erie clinging to a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter against top-ranked Palmer Ridge, the injuries were piling up in the Tigers’ backfield.
Senior quarterback Blake Barnett was hopping around on one leg — his one-man magic act sapped by a sprained left ankle. And starting running back Gavin Lusk was being tended to on the sideline after suffering an injury of his own.
If the second-ranked Tigers were going to grind out Saturday’s Class 4A state football championship, the ball was going to Braylon Toliver, and everyone inside Canvas Stadium knew it.
“I felt like it was on me,” Toliver said. “I’ve got to do whatever I can to make a play.”
The sophomore did just that, helping save Erie’s state title hopes with a 32-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter that all but sealed a 20-6 victory over previously unbeaten Palmer Ridge.
A starting defensive back in his second season on varsity, Toliver had spent most of the fall as the No. 2 behind Lusk in Erie’s offensive backfield. But after Lusk rolled his ankle early in a drive that began at the Tigers’ 33-yard line with Erie ahead 13-6 and just under 11 minutes to go, Toliver was thrust into a lead role.
First, his number was called on fourth-and-2 near midfield: a 5-yard dive that kept the Erie drive alive. Then, with the Tigers facing third-and-5 at the Palmer Ridge 32, Barnett audibled to a counter.
It appeared the Palmer Ridge defense had the play bottled up as Toliver hit the line of scrimmage, but he bounced outside, found a lane and turned on the jets to win a foot race to the right pylon.
“I was going to go through them or go right by them,” Toliver said.
The one person who knew it was a touchdown from the start? Barnett himself.
The Kansas State commit raised his arms in a touchdown formation as Toliver crossed the 20, then hopped one-legged 35 yards so he could embrace his teammate after he crossed the goal line.
“That won the game for us,” Barnett said. “We’re state champs. Amazing play. I couldn’t wait to hug him.”
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing Toliver did in Saturday’s championship game.
With Palmer Ridge threatening to score on its first drive of the second half, the starting safety used all of his 5-foot-10, 175-pound frame to rise up and bat away a Derek Hester pass intended for Jimmer Weir at the goal line. One play later, the Bears’ drive ended with a Carson Hageman sack.
“We knew (Weir) is a great athlete,” Toliver said. “I was on him for man coverage, I just had to go and get it.”
All told, Toliver carried the ball 11 times for 80 yards. Lusk finished with 16 carries for 57 yards, eventually returning to the field late in the fourth quarter to tack on some more yardage in what ended up being a 211-yard day on the ground for the Tigers.
“(Lusk) is such a stud, so Braylon hasn’t had to go out there much lately, but we know Braylon can do it,” Erie coach Jeff Giger said. “It’s just Gavin is playing so well, and then Braylon plays on the defensive side.
“Then Gavin got banged up a little bit, and Braylon comes in, and that (performance) doesn’t surprise any of us. I mean that kid, he’s a hell of a runner, we’re just very fortunate that we have two of them.”
And now the Tigers have their first Class 4A state title, too, coming after two years of heartbreak that had left them just short.
“I love these boys,” Toliver said. “They are like family, blood, my brothers. It’s amazing.”
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