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Steamboat Springs — If at any point the Steamboat Springs High School football team needed to redeem itself this season, the Sailors always delivered.

Steamboat snapped two-game losing streaks to Western Slope League bullies Palisade and Glenwood Springs and has now put itself in position to garner a top-three seed in the Class 3A playoffs.

The Colorado High School Activities Association releases playoff brackets today. They’ll be online at www.chsaa.org.

But now that Steamboat has clinched a top seed, won the Western Slope League for the first time since 2006 and turned in an undefeated regular season, the next monkey off the back is the playoffs.

Three years ago, Steamboat got bounced in the second round by Pueblo County. The past two years have included first-round exits for Steamboat, one to Fossil Ridge and the other to Pueblo County.

A common factor in all those games was that they were played on the road with a team that had a weakness.

It’s pretty hard to find a weakness in this year’s team.

“I think we deserve the No. 1 seed,” senior Joe Dover said after Friday’s 30-21 win against Glenwood. “The way we came out and played with our heart every game — the blockers blocked, the receivers caught, the quarterback threw and the runners ran. We always came out and just did what we needed to do.”

It might not be that simple in the playoffs, where 16 of Class 3A’s 37 best teams enter. The classification, maybe more so than any other, is known for upsets in the early rounds.

But how far can this Sailors team get? Does it have the ability to go all the way?

“Oh, you bet,” said Glen­wood coach Rocky Whitworth, whose team won

a state championship last season. “They’re an outstanding team. They’re smooth, and they have a lot of weapons. They have a speed defense that if they have a good day, they can compete with anybody.”

Whitworth, whose team went an impressive 14-0 last season, said many things matter when it comes to playoff football.

But two things, he said, always stick out.

“I would say when you get to this point, on any given day a team can beat each other,” he said. “It always comes down to kicking game and turnovers when teams are equal. It’s that way in the playoffs.”

Friday’s game was as close to a playoff game as teams can get in the regular season. It determined the league champion. Going off Whitworth’s point, Steamboat created two turnovers Friday, and kicker Peter Schuette hit a 21-yard field goal with two minutes left in the game to put it out of reach.

Considering all that, Steam­boat coach Aaron Finch said the Sailors now have a chance to reach their last goal.

“It’s always first make the playoffs,” he said. “Then it’s a league championship, and to do it with 10 wins is pretty darn amazing. But none of that matters. It’s four one-game seasons. Your season is over if you don’t win the next game. We’re going to worry about this next game and not worry about looking back too much.”