Mesa football hoping for another magical run in the 6A playoffs like 2009
Mesa High School's 102 years of football have been filled with highs and lows, championship seasons, heartbreaking losses, and one magical ride the current players have been given a history lesson on this week.
The Jackrabbits are in the 6A playoffs for the first time since 2009, as a huge underdog as a No. 14 seed getting ready to play No. 3 Tempe Corona del Sol on Friday night in the first round.
Going in, they've been told about that wild, magical ride Mesa went on to the state final in 2009.
Kelley Moore was the head coach then and his strong safety was Ammon Fisher, who is now an assistant coach on this year's 7-3 team. In Fisher's senior season, Mesa came into the playoffs at 6-4, with one of the wins given to it because Laveen Cesar Chavez had to forfeit its wins. Nobody figured Mesa would get past the first round after losing to Hamilton 43-22 in the final week of the regular season.
Mesa stunned Mesa Red Mountain 37-10, upset Brophy Prep 13-3 and knocked off Mountain Pointe 14-10 in coach Norris Vaughan's first year in Ahwatukee, before losing to Hamilton in the state championship game 35-0.
"We ended up dropping power points but we matched up," Fisher said. "Our road to the state championship game was filled with our region. They stacked the Fiesta Region that year.
"We had a bunch of guys who believed in what we did and played a really good system. It kind of came together. We're here. We're starting to believe we're finding our track that we want to go on."
Since 2009, when the Jackrabbits wound up 9-5, there have been mostly losing seasons at a school that has won 11 state championships, the last coming in 1992.
Mesa's postseason was made possible by the Arizona Interscholastic Association's Open Division playoff bracket, which takes the top eight teams from among three big conferences to play in a separate state tournament. This year, the AIA took seven from 6A, which lifted Mesa into the 16-team conference playoff bracket.
"This means a lot, for winning the region (title) for the first time in 21 years to making the playoffs (in 6A) for the first time since 2009," senior quarterback Manny Pino said. "There's a lot on the line."
Coach Chad DeGrenier, in his fourth season leading the program after coaching previously at Mesa Mountain View and winning a state championship as head coach at Cave Creek Cactus Shadows, knows the Mesa history. He knows about 2009. And he knows these players are ready to make their own history, starting with a date at Corona del Sol (8-2), which defeated Mesa 24-10 to open this season.
"We come in excited," DeGrenier said. "We played (Corona) early. They're a very good football team. We played them tough. The kids know them, so that helps us. There's no surprise. And they know us. We're different. We're a little bit better. We've had some guys mature during the past 10 weeks."
DeGrenier, who was known for his air raid offenses at Cactus Shadows, has turned this team loose on the ground. Junior St. Cyr, 5-foot-11, 209 pounds, a junior, has run for 897 yards and 17 touchdowns, averaging six yards a carry. Pino has rushed for 543 yards and six scores. And Cash Merrell, a quarterback, passed for 324 yards and ran for 202 yards in the three games he played.
Their go-to guy is wide receiver Tre Brown, who, for a second year in a row, has more than 1,000 receiving yards.
"He's just a great kid, has a great GPA, he loves football," DeGrenier said about Brown.
Brown said his goal was to exceed 1,000 yards every year.
"I just want to overachieve and contribute to the team," he said. "It means a lot to me."
Brown said the energy around campus has changed because of the playoffs.
"Everybody is excited for us," he said.
Junior linebacker McKy Peters, 5-11, 174, has been Mesa's most valuable player on defense, intercepting seven passes. He has drawn inspiration from his brother Jaymen Green, who was a catalyst of that 2009 Mesa team, an undersized running back/defensive back at 5-10, 155 pounds, who ran for two touchdowns and had an interception he returned 30 yards in that first-round shocker over Red Mountain. Green is a police officer now.
"That was my oldest brother on that team that led that team," Peters said. "I plan to do the same thing with this team."
To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on Twitter @azc_obert.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mesa football hoping for another magical run in the playoffs like 2009
