CVU football players celebrate the school’s first-ever state football championship Saturday in Rutland after the Redhawks defeated Middlebury with a last-second goal line stand. PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL LAMONTAGNE/VTSPORTSIMAGES.COM
“We legitimately lost our mind … Everybody on the defense began to run toward the sideline and everybody on the sideline began to run toward the defense,” said Rahn Fleming, CVU headcoach, after the game. PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL LAMONTAGNE/VTSPORTSIMAGES.COM
CVU football players celebrate the school’s first-ever state football championship Saturday in Rutland after the Redhawks defeated Middlebury with a last-second goal line stand. PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL LAMONTAGNE/VTSPORTSIMAGES.COM
All season long, the Champlain Valley football team has been led by a high-powered offense that has helped CVU blow teams away. But on the night of the Division I state championship game Saturday in Rutland, and with a title on the line, it was the defense that saved the day.
Champlain Valley stopped Middlebury from completing a comeback with a goal line stop as time expired to win the D-I title game 24-19 and capture the program’s first state championship.
“We legitimately lost our mind,” said CVU coach Rahn Fleming. “The ball gets knocked away, the clock ticked to zero and everybody on the defense began to run toward the sideline and everybody on the sideline began to run toward the defense.
“It was so symbolic of how it didn’t matter if you set foot on the field for a single competitive rep, we got there together.”
For most of the second half, it looked like the Redhawks would not need any late game drama to ensure the title win. But with just over three minutes remaining in the game, Middlebury cut the CVU lead to 24-19.
Then the Tigers defense made a stand and CVU turned the ball back over with a chance to put together a game-winning drive. Middlebury moved up the field — a 26-yard pass and a penalty on the CVU defense helped — until they got to the 8-yard line.
There the Redhawks stood tall, keeping the Tigers out of the end zone and clinching the win.
“In those final plays when it mattered most, they gave everything and it was enough,” Fleming said. “It was a bend-but-don’t-break performance at a moment when the breaking would’ve been irreparable.”
Jack Sumner started off the scoring for CVU, capping off the game’s opening drive with a 9-yard touchdown run halfway through the fourth quarter. The Tigers tied the game early in the second quarter, then took the 13-7 lead on a 21-yard TD run.
Quarterback Ollie Cheer put the Redhawks back in front with under two minutes to play in the first half, hitting Brian Rutherford with a 15-yard TD pass. Aidan Morris hit the extra point to put the team ahead 14-13.
CVU forced a turnover with 15 seconds left in the second quarter and Morris hit a 43-yard field goal as time expired in the half to give the Redhawks a 17-13 lead.
Sumner helped extend the lead, scoring on an 11-yard run midway through the third quarter to put the Redhawks up 24-13.
But Middlebury stopped CVU on the goal line in the fourth quarter, then scored to close the gap to 24-19 with 3:01 left in the game, setting up the late defensive heroics from the Redhawks.
The Redhawks can be excused for having flashbacks to last season’s championship game, when they lost to Essex late in the game.
“For those who were there for the game last year, there was a kind of collective, ‘oh no, not this, not again, no way,’” Fleming said. “It was an interesting time of increased urgency and of a very painful memory that made it stronger when we most needed it.”
“We legitimately lost our mind … Everybody on the defense began to run toward the sideline and everybody on the sideline began to run toward the defense,” said Rahn Fleming, CVU headcoach, after the game. PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL LAMONTAGNE/VTSPORTSIMAGES.COM
The championship was a culmination of a multi-year march to the top of Division I. After CVU did not make the postseason in 2018 and 2019, Covid changed the 2020 season when the sport played a 7-vs-7, touch football season to get the athletes on the field, and the Redhawks advanced all the way to the final.
“I really don’t look at the Covid season as a lost year,” Fleming said. “It was a year for building character and beginning to establish character as a team and beginning to experience ourselves differently, which was you look around the locker room, you see a group of winners, you see guys who get it.”
They turned that success into an appearance in the championship game last season, falling to Essex in a heartbreaker in the snow.
That loss served as fuel for CVU this year as the Redhawks pushed for a return to the title game, this time to win it.
CVU finished the season unbeaten against Vermont opponents, with a 10-0 record.
