To hear those in the know talk about the Round Valley junior and senior classes, a state championship was the expectation ever since the group was winning just about everything in the White Mountain area dating back the Mighty Mites days a decade ago.

It came to fruition Saturday night – thanks largely due to a freshman interloper – when the No. 3 Elks beat No. 1 Benjamin Franklin 13-10 in the 3A state championship at Mountain Pointe.

“Everyone in the community has known since these guys were little that this group was special,” Round Valley coach Brad Baca said. “They won basketball, they won little league football. They beat everybody when they went to other towns.

“In spring football we told them they were the best team in 3A. I think they believed it from the first day. Sometimes as coaches you say that to build them up, but we believed that as coaches, and I think they believed and proved it by beating a team like Ben Franklin.”

It was an intense, physical game that saw both teams unable to score any offensive points in the second half with Ben Franklin leading 10-6 at the half.

The only score came when Round Valley freshman Jaxon Crick blocked his second punt, on successive Ben Franklin possessions.

The first one didn’t lead to any points, but Crick made sure it did the second time when he scooped it up and ran it 3 yards for the score. The Elks (13-1) led 13-10 with 1:41 left in the third quarter.

“They tried to move a kid in (from the wing), but it didn’t matter,” said Crick, who has four blocked punts on the year. “I timed it perfectly. I was going to take it all the way this time. It’s a dream.”

Ben Franklin (13-1) had two drives in the fourth quarter that produced no points when the Chargers came up short on 4-and-1 from the Round Valley 38. Elks senior linebacker Trenyn Trickey, who was named defensive MVP, came off the left edge to tackle Landon Stetka.

 The Chargers started their last drive at the 50-yard line with 1:33 left. Christian Sorenson made a terrific catch on the far sideline, and Talan Speir had another short catch, but turned the corner and gave Ben Franklin a 1st-and-goal from the 7.

“It was about trust,”  Ben Franklin quarterback Gavin Wyler said. “I trusted everybody. I just needed to make the right read. I thought we’d win it, but we couldn’t get it done. It’s going to suck for a long time, but we had a chance. We’ll be back next year.”

That’s when the interloper showed up again as Crick sacked Wyler. Ben Franklin then spiked it. After an incompletion, the field goal team came out, but it went wide right to send the Round Valley, and its large contingent of fans who made the four-hour drive, into a frenzy.

“I’ve been playing with a lot of these guys since elementary school and I never cried harder than when I came off that football field,” said senior running back Jeffery Cochran, who was named offensive MVP and overall MVP. “It was pure emotion or joy.

“It comes down to grit and we were the most physical team. We came out and we wanted to win it more.”

The struggle for Ben Franklin was the offense scored easily on its first drive on 11 plays with Wyler connecting with Speir on a 2-yard score, and then added a field goal on the third drive for the 10-6 lead.

The offense didn’t add on, the special teams missed two field goals and had two punts blocked while defense allowed only one offensive score.

“We had a chance and it’s all you can ask for,” Ben Franklin coach Danny Norris said. “It’s hard because I feel like special teams has been great for us all year. I feel like I left us down in that regard. That’s a unit that I take a lot of pride in and we didn’t get it done.

“It’s on me. It’s a complete failure on my part and I let these guys down.”

Round Valley won its eighth state title, which is tied for sixth most in Arizona history.  It’s the first since 2019, and the Elks have made 14 state championship games, which is also tied for sixth most in state history.

“Since we were in the second grade we knew once we got to high school, we were going to do something like this,” junior quarterback Kage Finch. “That was the team (Ben Franklin) with the most heart of any team we’ve ever seen.

“To win it is pure joy, pure love for my teammates. We’ve been playing together for so long we knew this was possible since Day 1. Not a lot people have that. It’s a brotherhood, a family and we’re all one.”