Any chances of an Ignacio High School football playoff berth ended with last week’s 41-0 loss at home to Centauri.
Bobcats’ head coach Lupe Huerta assembled a challenging non-conference schedule to help his team toward a possible wild-card berth.
That plan backfired, as IHS (1-6, 1-2 Southern Peaks League) lost its first four games against Class 1A playoff teams from last season and two Class 2A teams.
The Bobcats could have made the playoffs with a top-two finish in their league, but IHS already has lost to two of the top two teams in the league and couldn’t win a head-to-head tiebreaker because of that.
“We had big expectations, and then all the injuries and losing players and having to make all the changes, it becomes tough,” Huerta said. “You still have to play those games. The schedule doesn’t change.”
IHS still has two games to play, though, starting with Center at 7 p.m. Friday at IHS.
Ignacio’s group of seniors never has lost to Center (3-4, 1-2 SPL), and the team wants to keep that streak alive to finish the season strong.
“Really, the only thing we’ve talked about is for them to stay positive and finish off the season on a good note,” Huerta said. “Obviously, we have no chance at the playoffs. They’re really positive and upbeat. They want to finish out the two games with two wins for the seniors.”
Not that anyone in the Bobcats’ camp is counting on a sure victory against the Vikings.
Center has stayed close with the Bobcats in every game over the last three years, regularly endangering leads IHS thought safe.
“No matter how well we’ve done, how big of numbers we’ve put up against them, they’ve found a way to fight and claw their way back into the game,” Huerta said. “I’m just telling the kids we’ve just got to fight.”
A solid running game would help the Bobcats hold a lead better, but IHS has struggled to run the ball all season and hasn’t been helped because of a rash of injuries to the offensive line.
“It’s very important: We have to run the ball,” Huerta said. “It’s not a matter of, ‘We need to do our best at it,’ because of the simple fact that this team always seems to find a way to fight back against us and crawl back into a game.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
