On Saturday afternoon, the 6-man football state semifinalist took the field to decide who would face off for this year's state title.
When the dust settled, the championship game competitors for next week's title game were set. No. 1 Stratton will face No. 2 Fleming in the championship game next Friday at the CSU-Pueblo Thunderbowl. Fleming and Stratton – as the Stratton/Liberty co-op in 2019 and 2020 – will be playing one another in the 6-man title game for the third time in the past four years.
(1) Stratton 46, (5) Otis 13
The Stratton football team has continued to flex its muscles in the 6-man classification all season long and after another dominant victory on Saturday, the Eagles have just one more pose left to strike.
In the semifinals of the 6-man state playoffs, the top-ranked Eagles won 46-13 over No. 5 Otis, a team they defeated by 44 points back on Oct. 7 during the regular season. The victory punched Stratton’s ticket to the 6-man state championship game next Friday at the CSU-Pueblo Thunderbowl.
The 2022 title game will have a familiar feel for the Eagles, who played in the 6-man title game last year. They’re hoping, however, that this year’s game will yield a different result, as the Eagles finished runners-up to Cheyenne Wells in 2021.
Stratton has been dominant in the postseason thus far, winning its first two playoff games by an average margin of 43 points and running away from Otis on Saturday.
Were the Eagles to win the state championship it would be their first under the sole banner of “Stratton” since 2002. The co-op of Liberty/Stratton won a state title in 2013.
(2) Fleming 68, (3) Granada 60
Based on the closeness of their seeds and the vast difference between their scores and those of their early round opponents’, Saturday 6-man football state semifinal matchup between No. 2 Fleming and No. 3 Granada promised to be an exciting clash.
It most certainly was.
Saturday's game was tied 60-60 at the end of overtime and went into overtime. In the end, it was Fleming that prevailed, scoring in overtime to walk away with a 68-60 victory and having secured a spot in the championship game.
"I've been doing this a long time and have had some exciting wins, but this was by far the best," Fleming coach John King said on the Coloradopreps.com Scoreboard Show. "These kids just battled. The first half, we made some mistakes. They had some lucky plays, in a sense the ball was bouncing their way. Things weren't going right. I told the guys, 'You know what, you have to decide right now. Are you going to accept the season being over? Or do you want the trip to Pueblo?' The just responded unbelievebly."
It took one heck of an effort just to force overtime, let alone win it.
Fleming trailed by 16 points with a little over four minutes to go but was able to score 16 unanswered points in that timeframe to keep hope alive.
The Fleming football team has won four state championships and won most recently in 2020. A win next week would give the Wildcats their third state title in the past four years.