Erie beats Brighton in Class 5A debut – Longmont Times-Call
BRIGHTON – When a party leader leaves after a resounding success, it leaves something of a vacuum at the top of the candidate list. Erie football, the returning Class 4A state champions, was fortunate to be blessed with a lot of talent waiting in the wings.
The Tigers proved this on Friday night at Brighton High School when they crushed the Bulldogs 45-0 in the opening game of their 2024 season.
No Blake Barnett needed.
In their first game since winning the championship – and since the retirement of their Colorado quarterback, the all-time leading touchdown player – four new candidates emerged to lead their way through the new 5A classification.
Junior Braylon Toliver showed his speed early in the game, rushing for 101 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone. Senior Gavin Lusk moved the chains like a machine, rushing for 88 yards and a touchdown in the first two quarters.
Senior quarterback Ronin Ward finished his night with 144 passing yards and a 40-yard passing touchdown, and also ran for another 26 yards. Another senior, Donovan O’Brien, punished the Bulldogs with two touchdowns of his own on offense and special teams, scoring 83 yards on offense.
They all took a break after the kick-off of the second half.
The trio of seniors – Ward, Lusk and O’Brien – have joined with Toliver to create a separation of powers that any program would envy. All four have agreed to take the reins of the team.
“We lost some big players like Blake Barnett, Jackson Cowgill and Mason Cowgill, but I like to tell (my teammates) it’s really a similar team,” Lusk said. “We have a lot of talent. We have talent coming in and everyone is doubting us. I’ve even heard some self-doubt on the team, but I just like to tell them we have a lot of returning players. It’s not like we’ve lost everything.”
1 from 14
Expand
A few weeks earlier, both Lusk and Toliver had presented their arguments for the captaincy to the rest of the team, a sort of political convention to sell people on their agenda. Lusk focused his message on proving the haters wrong. Toliver, who is normally a lead-by-example guy, has started using his voice to influence the masses.
Both had a zero-tolerance policy toward the Bulldogs in week zero of the 2024 season.
After the three early points from Toliver and Lusk, seniors Carson Hageman and O’Brien scored two more touchdowns in the first half, one of them on a 40-yard shot by Ward, to give the Tigers a 36-0 lead at halftime.
O’Brien opened the second half with a 94-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, which Mason Guven added with a 30-yard field goal in the fourth.
None of this surprised head coach Jeff Giger.
“We’re giving speeches for the captain’s election,” Giger said. “We joked, ‘I think Gavin could have a career in politics,’ because everyone was talking and fighting a little bit, and then Gavin stands there. It was just a wild mess, and he just talks like he doesn’t care about any of that.”
Toliver may not have a “C” next to his name at the end, but he’s still excited to see what he and the rest of his Tigers can do this season. He and Lusk have shown that they’re not to be trifled with.
“I think it’s just a big switch,” he said. “One of us is in the slot, one is at running back. And then when we block for each other, it’s just an incredible type of game.
“It just gives us more variety in the game, more people we can get the ball to, more areas we can spread it around. I’m really excited. It’s going to be a great season. The summer went by quickly, but we’re here. We have to make the most of it.”
Originally published:
