Leg­end run­ning back Bryce Vaz sprint­ed into the end zone so many times in the first round of the Class 5A play­offs that it proved dif­fi­cult to keep count.

“I’ll be hon­est with you,” his coach Monte The­len said, recall­ing his thought process as No. 3 Leg­end rolled to a 56–35 vic­to­ry over No. 6 Fairview last week. “I didn’t know for sure how many touch­downs he had scored.”

Vaz’s touch­down tal­ly? A stun­ning six rush­ing scores — match­ing his total car­ries for the sea­son pri­or to last week.

The junior mak­ing his first Leg­end start at run­ning back, con­vert­ed from wide receiv­er, pro­pelled his team into Saturday’s semi­fi­nal matchup with No. 2 Val­or Chris­t­ian — estab­lish­ing Vaz as the ear­ly break­out star of the Col­orado prep foot­ball postseason.

“I wasn’t keep­ing track, but after every time I would score, my team­mates would come up to me on the side­lines and tell me,” Vaz said. “I wasn’t real­ly wor­ried about it. I just knew this was a big play­off game for us. We had to go out there and win. … I was just wait­ing for my opportunity.”

Vaz began play­ing foot­ball at about age 5 in flag com­pe­ti­tion, he said, with supreme agili­ty “mak­ing kids miss and scor­ing touch­downs.” Vaz lat­er enrolled at Val­or Chris­t­ian for his fresh­man year to play football.

How­ev­er, when his par­ents changed jobs, Vaz left Val­or for Leg­end. CHSAA trans­fer rules pro­hib­it­ed him from play­ing var­si­ty last sea­son. Then Vaz suf­fered a high-ankle sprain that held him out from sev­er­al JV games.

“I was very upset by it,” Vaz said. “I under­stood the trans­fer rules. But it was just a wacky sit­u­a­tion play­ing JV when I knew I was var­si­ty talent.”

Vaz final­ly got his oppor­tu­ni­ty this sea­son but was unable to sup­plant senior Con­nor Eise as the start­ing run­ning back. Vaz faced anoth­er set­back with a ham­string injury. When healthy, Leg­end coach­es fea­tured him at wide receiv­er, but Vaz always felt more com­fort­able at run­ning back.

Then Eise was injured in the week of prac­tice lead­ing up to the quar­ter­fi­nals against Fairview. Leg­end turned to Vaz in the back­field and he exceed­ed all expec­ta­tions. Late in the first quar­ter, Vaz broke loose for a 56-yard touch­down — val­i­dat­ing his desire to car­ry the football.

Fairview couldn’t keep Vaz out of the end zone, as he put up 310 yards on 31 carries.

“He’s explo­sive,” The­len said. “He’s got good speed and strength, and showed real­ly good bal­ance against Fairview. He ran away from a lot of peo­ple. … He’s a fine young man from a very good fam­i­ly. We’re real­ly hap­py for his success.”

Leg­end (7–0) aims to keep its momen­tum rolling against Vaz’s for­mer team at Val­or Chris­t­ian (6–0) on Sat­ur­day. Vaz knows Leg­end is the under­dog. That only strength­ens his desire for a chance to play in the 5A state title game next week in Pueblo.

“I have high stan­dards for myself in this game,” Vaz said. “I have to ball out even more than I even did last week because Val­or is a tougher team (than Fairview). But I know all their play­ers and all their guys. I’m real­ly excit­ed to go out there and show them what they’re miss­ing out on.”