8-man football semifinals: No. 1 Haxtun, No. 2 Mancos to play for championship
Nearing the end of a well-fought state tournament, the top two seeds in 8-man are the final two teams alive following Saturday’s semifinals.
In next week’s state championship game, it will be No. 1 Haxtun taking on No. 2 Mancos.
(1) Haxtun 46, (5) Holly 26
Haxtun football is a highly-successful program that has won seven state champions, but it’s been a while since the Bulldogs won their last trophy.
That most recent state title for the Bulldogs came back in 2004, so in fact, it’s been long enough now that many players from that championship team are now coaches on the Haxtun football team’s staff. But with former Haxtun state champions helping lead this year’s bunch onto the field Saturday afternoon, the No. 1 Bulldogs won 46-26 over No. 5 Holly in the state semifinals and secured a berth into next week’s championship game.
“It’s been a while,” Haxtun head coach JD Stone told the Colorado Preps Scoreboard Show. “We’ve got such a storied program here. I love giving it back to our community and getting our kids back there… One of the blessing is most of my staff is from that ’04-05 team, so they bring back that tradition of Haxtun football.”
Facing an explosive Holly team, Haxtun took a while to find a rhythm but eventually got things going on offense and the Bulldogs defense held Holly’s offense well under it’s average of 45.1 points per game.
“We kind of got going there, finally,” Stone said. “Our offensive line finally figured out they were running with the kind of kids we haven’t seen all year and we kind of got some stuff going, kind of got the ball moving.”
(2) Mancos 26, (11) Sanford 16
Next week’s 8-man football state championship game is going to be a big one for the Mancos Bluejays, seeing as how they’ll be playing it in for the first time ever.
On Saturday, No. 2 Mancos won 26-16 over No. 11 Sanford in the state semifinals to punch it’s first ticket to Colorado’s 8-man title game. Whatever happens next, heading to the CSU-Pueblo Thunderbowl next week is sure to be the trip of a lifetime for the Bluejays.
“We have never been to state and we’ve never even actually made it to the semfinals in the history of our school,” Mancos head coach Josh Gardner said. “Our community is really excited and that just means a lot of positive things here in Mancos.”
True to the form that has gotten them where they are, it was defense that won the day for the Bluejays once again in the semifinals. They held a Sanford offense that averages 41.1 points per game to 26 points.
“When we played them earlier in the season, their all-star running back (Kelton) Gartrell was injured,” Gardner said. “We knew he was back and we knew it was going to be a big battle, so it was a good game. Their quarterback, Josh Holman, is awfully athletic as well, so we had to make sure our defensive ends were disciplined.”
