Home

Steamboat Springs — They’re all nervous — at least a little.

With a bid to the Class 3A state championship football game potentially just hours away, how could you not be?

“Of course there’s some nervous tension,” Steamboat coach Aaron Finch said. “I’m excited.”

It’s not a feeling restricted to the Steamboat Springs High School team, either.

“Nervous, but a good nervous,” said Pueblo Central coach Dave Craddock, whose Wildcats will line up at 1 p.m. today in Pueblo to try to end Steamboat’s season.

The motivations that drive Steamboat and Pueblo Central are the same: a state championship. But the back story for each team is vastly different.

Pueblo Central is in the midst of its first playoff run in 38 years. Craddock is in his 16th season coaching, and it is his team’s fourth visit to the postseason.

Before its undefeated 12-0 run through its 2009 schedule, the team was just 15-35 in its previous six seasons, all but two of which were played at the Class 4A level.

The response from the Pueblo community has been growing interest that nearly has reached a fever pitch and will likely top out at 1 p.m. today at the expansive Dutch Clark Stadium in Pueblo.

Steamboat, meanwhile, is returning to the semifinals for the third time in seven seasons. And this year’s trip bears little in common with the other two.

Surprise seasons

It’s all about expectations, and the Steamboat team has been saddled with extreme expectations all season.

There’s nary a 3A prep football fan in the state that isn’t well aware of senior quarterback Austin Hinder and his eye-popping list of college suitors. And he’s coupled with highlight reel weapons including running back Joe Dover and wide receiver Jack Spady. The players and fans would have had a difficult time coming to terms with a season that ended before this point.

That wasn’t the case in the 2003 or the 2005 drive through the playoffs.

“Privately, between the players, we thought we might go 0.500,” said David May, who quarterbacked the 2003 team and now is a teacher and assistant coach at Steamboat.

May might have been Austin Hinder before Austin Hinder. He set the school’s still-standing season passing mark with 2,425 yards and went on to play college ball, spending one season at Mesa State.

He said he never expected things to unfold the way they did in that 2003 season.

“We went to a summer 7-on-7 camp and did pretty well. That’s when we started to think we might be a little better than we thought,” he said. “The big question going into the year was the line, and they played great all year.”

The team got off to a fast start and delivered a steady stream of upsets to finish the regular season 9-1. Like the 2009 team, it played its first two playoff games at home, and it took advantage. The Sailors beat Sterling, 13-10, and then dismantled D’Evelyn, 22-0, to advance to the semifinals.

The ride finally ended on a snowy field in Florence.

Steamboat surged inside the 10-yard line in the waning seconds but missed on three shots at the end zone, falling 13-6.

“Occasionally, I still think about it,” May admitted Friday as the semifinal-bound 2009 Sailors worked through their final practice. “We were right there in it. If we had executed a little better on the last couples of plays, maybe we could have gotten one in.”

Despite the “happy to be here” feeling, the loss was made worse by the knowledge that Steamboat would have hosted the next week’s state championship game had it won.

“We were pretty disappointed,” May said. “We thought we should have won that game.”

Premium potential

It was a similar story in 2005 — an unexpected drive into the playoffs resulted in a narrow but crushing loss.

“We were just amazed we were there,” said Finch, who then was in his second season at the helm of the Steamboat football program. “That was a team that had very low expectations early, and we just snuck out some early wins. We got on a roll and started putting it together.

“It turned into a really fun thing.”

Steamboat lost two regular-season games and hit the road for the first round of the playoffs. Led by stud sophomore running back Jay Hanley, the squad thumped Harrison, 44-14. In the quarterfinals, the team held off Eagle Valley at home, 14-6, avenging a 16-13 loss to the same team from the league campaign.

The tables were turned a week later, however. Steamboat bested Rifle, 14-12, early in the season, but lost 14-7 while playing the team for the right to advance to the championship.

The Bears focused on Hanley and took advantage of three Steamboat turnovers, including one at the Rifle 4-yard line. They scored with three minutes remaining to take the lead for good.

Of course, the 2009 team is somewhat different, thanks to those lofty ambitions.

“This has been very different,” Finch said. “We are trying to live up to those expectations rather than in 2005 when they weren’t there.”

Finch said it’s been a similar run in some ways, though.

One thing that helped the 2003 and 2005 teams drive through the playoffs was team unity, and by all accounts, that’s a characteristic the 2009 team has loads of.

“To get that far and win those tough games, there has to be a strong bond and trust,” Finch said. “This season has been a lot of fun. Everyone was touting how good we’d be before we played, and on paper there were a lot of good things about this team.

“On the field, we’ve turned out to be pretty good, too.”

Today will decide whether the Sailors are capable of taking one more step, and “nervous” isn’t the only emotion running through the team.

“This is all dessert,” Finch said. “We’ve all been good boys and eaten our vegetables, done what we’re supposed to do. This is the last course, now, the dessert, and it’s fun.”