A defending state champion hasn’t visited Ignacio High School for football in at least a decade.
And the Bobcats will be rolling out quite the welcome mat for the Class 1A No. 1 when the two teams will meet at 7 p.m. Friday at IHS.
The field and track underwent full renovations over the summer and will be used for the first time in competition for the Bobcats’ home opener.
There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 6 p.m. to open the field and track, and fans will be able to step onto the synthetic turf before the game.
“The first month, the grass is great, but after a month or so it dries up and becomes pretty hard,” IHS head coach Lupe Huerta said Thursday of the old grass field. “It’s been uneven for years, lots of dips and little humps, stuff like that. It’s fine at the beginning of the year, but after a month or so it’s not easy to play on.”
Construction hasn’t been fully completed at the high school, which drastically has reduced the amount of available parking spaces. Fans are encouraged to park on the streets near the high school, and there will be a shuttle to carry fans from the parking lots of the elementary and middle schools, which will provide additional parking.
“We had our minicamp on the playground at the current high school, which would have been the old elementary school,” Huerta said. “We didn’t get to practice on the field until three days prior to our Hotchkiss game. Now we’ve had a couple of weeks of use and been able to actually play on a football field.”
IHS (0-1) will need as much preparation as it can get against Paonia (1-0), the defending state champion and this year’s top-ranked team.
Paonia hasn’t lost since Sept. 14, 2013, against Centauri, a streak of 11 games.
“My understanding is that nobody really wanted to play them because of (the state championship). Our whole goal was to toughen our schedule up enough so we weren’t denied a playoff spot because of our schedule strength,” Huerta said. “I think by adding Paonia, Hotchkiss, Pagosa, Cortez’s varsity; I don’t know if you can get much tougher than that.”
Paonia had five players on the Colorado High School Activities Association Class 1A All-State team last year. Only two of them were seniors, and the three returning players, Tony Darling, Dylan Geisler and Josh Kimball, man the trenches.
“They rely on their line,” Huerta said. “They’re tough. I can understand why they’re state champions.”
Three backs averaged more than 6 yards per carry in Paonia’s opening win against Monte Vista – running backs Gunnar Chesnik and Jeremiah Hillman and quarterback Taylor Walters.
Walters ran for nearly 2,000 yards and 25 touchdowns last season while adding another 11 scores through the air.
“They’re pretty consistent. They stay on track and do what they do,” Huerta said. “They run the ball and stick with it.”
Huerta thinks discipline will be key against the Eagles – that and improving the Bobcats’ run game.
“The things that we do, we have to do them very well. I’m pretty sure we can throw on these guys,” Huerta said. “Our passing game has always been solid; our run game is the one thing we have to do better. It all depends on consistency.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
