With Snowflake’s 42-28 quarterfinal win over East Region mate Blue Ridge last week, the Lobos are the final East Region team remaining in the 3A state football playoffs. The fourth seeded Lobos now have the task of taking on top ranked Benjamin Franklin on Saturday night at 6 p.m. at Williams Field High School. The Benjamin Franklin Chargers won their opening round game 56-0 against No. 16 Ganado then outlasted No. 9 American Leadership Academy Gilbert last week by a touchdown 35-28. The Chargers are 11-1 on the season with their only loss coming to second seeded American Leadership Queen Creek on Oct. 18. Among those wins are a 43-21 home field win over Snowflake way back on Aug. 30. They also defeated Snowflake two years ago 14-8 in a game played at Lobo Stadium. In their first meeting this year, the ground oriented Chargers threw just one pass, completing it for 32 yards and a touchdown. They piled up 286 rushing yards with three scores. It was their defense which really took away Snowflake’s strength in that first meeting. The Chargers held Snowflake to a mere 68 yards on the ground. Brig Turley and Terren Green were held to a combined 60 total yards. Last week alone Turley rushed for over 250 yards. With their running game stifled, Ethan Ramage completed 20 of 38 pass attempts for 185 yards with a pair of scores. If the Lobos want to advance to the title game next week they will certainly have to find a way to balance their offense, which includes getting Turley and Green heavily involved. If they can achieve that, the Lobos have a chance to upset the top seed and reach the state title game. In the other side of the bracket second seeded ALA Queen Creek will take on No. 3 Northwest Christian. The Queen Creek version of American Leadership is picked by many people to be the favorite team to win the title. For the Lobos, they need to take things one game at a time.
