Game of the Year: Chaparral High School football vs. Faith Lutheran

By Jesse Granger

Monday, May 23, 2016 | 2 a.m.

When Chaparral High’s football team made the trip to Faith Lutheran for a Division 1A quarterfinal game in November, few gave the Cowboys a chance to win. Chaparral hadn’t reached the state semifinals since 1990, while Faith Lutheran was only two years removed from a state championship.

Then the Crusaders jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

The Cowboys, adjusted, though, bolstering their pass defense by dropping more players into coverage while their offense inched its way back into the game, giving Chaparral a slim chance in the final minute.

Trailing 20-13, Chaparral quarterback Andrew Solis stepped into the shotgun on fourth-and-10 at Faith Lutheran’s 20-yard line.

The senior had struggled throughout the night, completing 11 of 25 passes for 98 yards and two interceptions, but coach Paul Nihipali still believed in him.

“Solis had been like that all year. He’s sporadic,” Nihipali said. “Obviously, we had some doubts in our mind but we knew we had to let him go. He would usually be flat all game and then pop a big one, so we were hoping for that.”

Star receiver Richard Nelson, who will play at Missouri State next year, sprinted past a defensive back toward the back of the end zone. Solis took a three-step drop and delivered a strike perfectly into Nelson’s hands.

The Cowboys needed only an extra point to tie the game and send it to overtime. Nihipali and Solis had other plans.

“We got in the huddle and I asked him, ‘Do you want to go for the tie or for the win?’ ” Nihipali said. “And Solis looked at me said, ‘We have to go for the win.’ ”

Nihipali trusted Solis again with a simple passing play on the two-point conversion. Solis rolled to his right and found running back Jacob Ford standing alone in the end zone. Ford caught the pass to make it 21-20, completing the comeback and sealing one of the biggest victories in Chaparral history.

“It was the best play of my career,” Ford said. “It was the most important play I’ve ever been a part of, and I’ve been playing football since I was 8 years old.”

Nihipali, who has been coaching at Chaparral for more than two decades, said the victory trumped any other football achievement of his lifetime. The Cowboys traveled north the next week, losing to Churchill County 40-27 to fall one game short of the state championship, but that didn’t spoil the upset that got them there.

“My son played for Virginia Tech and went to a national championship, and this supersedes it,” Nihipali said. “This one I was more directly associated with the outcome of the game. What made it special for me was the kids.”