The remnants of football’s past will glow and the ghosts of Bayfield will be present Friday night as the Bayfield High School football team envisions a 14th league championship waiting by night’s end.
The Wolverines will have to go through the Alamosa Mean Moose before any celebration, however.
The Class 2A No. 2-ranked Bayfield Wolverines (6-0, 3-0 2A Western Slope South) have been on a roll this year, stomping every opponent on its way to the postseason. Bayfield is seeking its 14th league title in school history and its first since 2012, which was head coach Gary Heide’s first year at the program. In that year, Bayfield went 11-1 with a 7-0 league record. The Wolverines eventually lost to Platte Valley 31-6 in the state playoffs.
Along with league at stake, the seniors will be celebrated for senior night, which gives this game higher significance.
“That adds a little more to the factor to us being ready; it’s senior night, the last Friday night home game at Bayfield,” Heide said Thursday in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “We have a lot of factors to get fired up. It’s a tribute to the players and their parents.”
The Wolverines have already clinched a state playoff berth – along with No. 1 Kent Denver, Strasburg and Bennett – via the CHSAA wild-card points system. Bayfield will look for its first state championship since the school won it all in 1996, the school’s only state title. The game implications for the school and the community are great. Underclassmen will be affected, middle schoolers will look on and youngsters in the stands will be inspired.
“This is everything; this is the league title and that lasts forever,” Heide said.
For Alamosa (3-4, 3-0), this game is a perfect way to prove the Mean Moose are for real. They have scored 151 points through the season, but have allowed 25 points per game on defense while starting the season at a lowly 3-4. But at 3-0 in the 2A Western Slope South League, the Mean Moose have been a different team as of late by scoring 34 points per game while allowing just 13 points per game in league play.
Both teams have already beaten Gunnison, Montezuma-Cortez and Olathe to similar results. Alamosa put a 48-0 beat down on Pagosa Springs, which is the final foe for Bayfield. That game will be played Oct. 30 in Pagosa Springs.
“They really play hard, they have great athletes on defense and come off the ball relentlessly,” Heide said of the Mean Moose. “They have big guys with a lot of speed. I expect a team that is really fired up, they have a whole lot to gain from this game.”
Right now, Alamosa has more on the line than Bayfield. With Bayfield having already punched a ticket to the postseason, Alamosa sits on the fence waiting for a win or luck to get in the postseason. Alamosa can get in by upsetting Bayfield, however, the Mean Moose can still get in if Olathe beats Montezuma-Cortez on Friday night or if they beat Montezuma-Cortez the last game of the season.
According to Heide, Alamosa will try to run the ball with an option-style offense and will try to fool the stingy Wolverine defense with a lot of miss direction plays.
With time in the film room and the whole squad healthy, Bayfield is waiting.
“We had a good week of practice, we’re very focused. This is the league championship, nothing matters if we don’t take care of business,” Heide said. “We want to take it ourselves. What I can see from our guys is that they’re all ready to play.”
The last time these two teams faced each other was last season, which saw Bayfield winning a close contest 27-22. In that game, Alamosa held senior Zane Phelps out of the end zone and limited him to 97 yards rushing. Fellow senior quarterback Kelton McCoy had a rough game by going a mere 1-for-5 for 16 yards and zero touchdowns. Senior Brody Mcghehey was the lone bright spot in that game with 60 yards on the ground and a score.
Bayfield will have to watch out for senior quarterback Marco Garcia, who threw for 188 yards on 19-for-26 passing and two touchdowns. Garcia also added 36 yards of rushing in that game.
The game kicks off at 7 p.m. Friday at Wolverine Country Stadium in Bayfield with halftime festivities for the seniors.
jmentzer@durangoherald.com
If you go
Who: Alamosa at No. 2 Bayfield
What: 2A Western Slope South League high school football
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Wolverine Country Stadium
Listen live: KLJH 107.1 FM
Twitter: @jonathanmentzer
