LAKEWOOD – It has been 10 seasons since Artesia High School reached the football postseason, and probably much longer since they’ve had a backfield as talented as the duo of Heder Gladden and Travys Davis.
The Pioneers’ playoff chances certainly look positive thanks to that duo. They rolled past El Dorado on Friday night at home 46-26 to improve to 4-1 on the season, and have scored 46 points or more in four straight games.
Gladden, the 5-foot-11 senior quarterback, ran for 330 yards on 22 rushes with three touchdowns, of 1, 19 and 27 yards. He had 12 rushes for double-digit gains, fooling the El Dorado defense often with his deft keepers or hand-offs to Davis.
He also completed 4 of 9 passes for another 153 yards and two touchdowns, to Davis for 63 yards and Marcel Bowman for 75. Davis ran for 169 yards on 13 carries and two touchdowns measuring 15 and 66 yards.
“He’s a great football player,” Artesia coach Don Olmstead said of Gladden. “He’s talented and a special kid. He has a great feel for the offense we’re running. There aren’t many high school quarterbacks with a feel for the kind of offense we’re running.”
“I started learning this offense in my sophomore year when coach introduced it,” Gladden said. “Travys (Davis) and I are good friends and we work out together. We’re feeling confident of what we can do this season with this good start.”
Olmstead said a few college coaches have contacted him about Gladden, but he expects more will show up as the season goes on. His ball-handling skills are first-rate and he has a great first step.
“I’d love to see him get a chance to play quarterback in college, but right now colleges are more likely to want him as a defensive back or receiver,” the coach said.
Artesia has plenty of opportunities to change their mind. The program is in a new league, the 605, and no longer packaged in the Suburban League where the program was mismatched against larger schools with more resources.
“This has been a great first step for us,” Olmstead said. “We have a chance to change the program and be competitive and set new goals for ourselves. We’re playing a schedule that fits us. This was a great win because El Dorado is a great program.’’
Artesia is in Division 12, El Modena In Division 8.
The game started wild, with each team scoring on its first two possessions.
El Dorado drove 60 yards in eight plays with the opening kick, Devaughan Celestine (69 yards rushing, 107 receiving) breaking off runs of 13, 8 and 13 while quarterback Kris Snipes had a 9-yard run and a 21-yard completion to Celestine. The running back scored from the 2 for a 7-0 lead after the kick.
Artesia needed just three plays to score, Gladden breaking off runs of 37 and 27 yards for the score, the second coming on a great play fake to Davis. The missed fake PAT left them down 7-6.
El Dorado used a great play-fake by Snipes to release Celestine open short, the big back doing most of the work on a 54-yard score for a 13-6 lead after the missed PAT.
Two plays later, Gladden found Bowman wide-open deep on a blown coverage for a 75-yard touchdown pass to make it 13-12 after Artesia against missed the PAT attempt.
The game slowed down a bit until Artesia strung a few big plays together for an 18-13 lead. Gladden completed a 10-yard pass to Bowman, Davis broke a 34-yard run to the El Dorado 19, and Gladden took it from there, running a fake to a back in motion before keeping the ball and running up the middle for the score.
The Pioneers scored on four of their first five possessions of the second half, Gladden’s 45-yard run leading to a short Davis score; his 26-yard scamper lead to a short pass to Davis that the back took for 63 yards and a score; and then Davis’ 66-yard run in which he escaped some tacklers, cut to the middle of the field and then ran over two El Dorado backs for the score.
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