The MSHS variety football team heads to CSU Pueblo tomorrow to play in the class 2A spring state championship game against Flatirons Academy after beating Buena Vista last week. In this COVID shortened Spring Season of Football, the Manitou Springs Football team has won more games than they had the past two seasons combined, and the only game that they lost, they lost because they were missing half of the team from Basketball.

2017-2018: 4-5

2018-2019: 3-6

2019-2020: 2-8

2020-2021: 6-1

 The Mustangs haven’t won 6 games in a season since the days of Lucas Rodholm, Davyn Adamscheck, Atticus Frederickson, and Julian Sanchez; and the win % now is 86% in comparison to 60%. So, why is this? Ultimately, it comes down to a few things, namely that Manitou is stacked this year. Think about it, we have seasoned veterans like Rylan Dowling, who can come in and get blocks; Thor Flett, who is one of the state’s premier safeties; and Nate Haas, who is an All-State offensive guard and defensive lineman. This with the new additions of  Joah Armour and Isaiah Thomas has changed the playing dynamic. Coaching has also changed over the past year. “We’ve been remodeling, I guess you could say,” said Coach Stu Jeck. “With the athletes and players that we had coming in and we knew that we needed a new system that was going to fit those guys. As a coaching staff, we put in a lot of time in the off-season retooling for these new weapons. That has been super successful. Along with that, the coaches have been pressuring that we’re playing for something much bigger than ourselves. We want that to last forever.”