GILBERT, Ariz. — The 32nd season of Friday Night Fever is drawing to a close with the handing out of golden footballs to state champions of Arizona’s biggest high school football divisions.
Already we have seen Casa Grande win an instant classic in 4A for their school’s 1st title, and Horizon handle Salpointe to win the 5A state championship.
But now it’s on to Saturday and two of the biggest games of the year, the 6A state championship and the Open Division state championship.
It will all start at noon with the 6A title game, a rematch of last year’s game, which saw Chaparral bring home the golden football by beating Highland 24-14.
“This is a different season, whatever happened last year is last year,” Chaparral head coach Brent Barnes said. “We’ve put that stuff behind us. We’ve got to go earn everything we’re doing this year and our guys are doing that.”
“I think having a taste of what a championship is like made them that much more hungry,” Highland head coach Brock Farrell said. “Being back, having the chance to win again, it’s an honor to play a team like Chaparral, though, with all the great players that they have. That’s who you want in a championship game. You want to play a team that’s got great players and is going to be a great football game.”
For both teams, the 2021 season hasn’t been the easiest of rides.
Chaparral started the season with a 33-21 loss to the Queen Creek Bulldogs, who went on the qualify for the Open Division playoffs as the #7 seed.
The Firebirds strung together 4-straight wins after that, before running into the toughest stretch of the season where they lost 3 games in a row to Hamilton (#1 seed in the Open), Brophy (#5 seed in 6A playoffs) and Liberty (#6 seed in the Open).
“When we had a tough set of losses there we talked about staying connected and committed to what we were doing,” Barnes said. “And our guys have done that.”
Since the Liberty game, the Firebirds have gone on a 5-game winning streak and find themselves inching closer to the program’s 8th state championship.
“(Our team has) grown so much throughout the whole season,” Barnes said. “That’s the biggest thing is to get better every week. We weren’t a championship team early in the season, but we are now.”
“We had a lot of doubts coming into the season because we had a lot of guys leave from last year, a lot of seniors,” Chaparral senior QB Brayten Silbor said. “We had a rough start to the season, we were still trying to figure out who was going to fill in the spots, they were still trying to get rolling. But we got rolling and I’m proud of my boys that we’re back here and excited.”
For Silbor, closing out his high school football career by winning a 2nd-straight title for the Firebirds would be a dream come true.
“I can’t really explain what it would mean for me to win two in a row, especially to cap off my senior year like that,” Silbor said. “But, it’s going to be a tough one, it’s going to be a shootout on both sides of the ball so it’s going to be whoever makes less mistakes coming out with the win.”
As for Highland, you can tell from their schedule that they believed they could qualify for the Open this year.
Counting today’s game against Chaparral, of the 15 teams outside of the Hawks that made the 6A playoffs, Highland will have played 11 of them plus 3 teams that qualified for the Open Division playoffs.
The Hawks started the 2021 season 6-0 before they ran into the top 3 seeds in the Open.
Up first was #3 Basha, who beat the Hawks 24-13.
Then came #1 Hamilton, who beat the Hawks 32-12.
Finally, there was #2 Chandler, who beat the Hawks 10-7.
Much like their opponent in the 6A title game, the Hawks learned from their 3-game losing streak, and have taken those lessons into the playoffs, as they are now riding a 4-game win streak.
“It was obviously tough because every team on our schedule was a playoff team and our 3 losses were to #1, #2 and #3 (in the state),” Farrell said. “The road getting here was definitely a grind, but the kids have been focused and on a mission this whole year.”
“After all theses years at Highland and the last 3 years with Coach Farrell, being able to finish it off with a ring in one last game would be special for the whole school, the whole community,” Highland senior QB Gage Dayley said.
There has been a lot of talk this week about the rematch as the Hawks look to take revenge to claim the program’s first state championship.
“We all wanted to play Chaparral again, for sure,” Dayley said. “Getting it to be in the state championship, it’s (like a) storybook basically. It’s weird to think about, knowing that we could make history at Highland. We’re all committed to do it, so we’re going to try our best to do it.”
However, for Chaparral, the rematch doesn’t mean all that much.
“I think they definitely wanted us more from last year, going for revenge, but you know, I want to play the best competition and I definitely think they are the other best team in the bracket,” Silbor said.
“I know we played them last year, but we played Pinnacle in the 2nd round of the playoffs and we played them a few weeks before that and that game was vastly different the second time around,” Barnes said. “That should help remind our guys that a team that you beat is going to be very hungry. I can guarantee you that this is what Highland wanted. I know they wanted to be back, but they probably wanted us on the other side. We’ve got to be able to match that.”
All the action kicks off at noon at Sun Devil Stadium.
If you still need a ticket, it can be purchased here.
If you want to watch the game at home, it will be streamed on the NFHS Network.
Be a Believer and Catch the special Championship edition of Friday Night Fever tonight at 11 p.m.! We will have highlights from every state championship game from 1A through the Open division.