Sporcle quizzes: State basketball champions

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

New Sporcle quiz time! Yay!

Grad school has been destroying me the past couple weeks, so to decompress I built some new quizzes on the highly addictive Sporcle.com. (Hey, some people drink, some people work out, some people play video games. I build Sporcle quizzes and play with Excel….)

You can click here to guess the boys basketball state champions since 1963…. or you can click here to guess the girls basketball state champions since 1976.

A hint for both quizzes: Don’t forget the schools that are closed.

Oh, and if you missed it the first time, you can play the football version of the same game by clicking here.

Now, back to the grad school grind….

–patrick

Updates: Huntley

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Thanks to Huntley alum Carl Rupp, I’ve filled in some of the coaches and removed a missing game from the missing games list for the Cardinals.

In addition to adding the coach for three seasons, I added Huntley’s 13-0 victory over the Gering, Neb., JV on Sept. 16, 1964. Thanks, Carl!

Again, if you see games on the missing games list or coaches’ names that are for seasons on the Coaches Project list that you can help me with, let me know. It’s appreciated!

–patrick

Five Minute Introduction: Ten Sleep

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

School: Ten Sleep
Nickname: Pioneers
Colors: blue and red
Stadium: Pioneers Stadium
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: The Pioneers put together three consecutive playoff berths from 1984-86, buoyed by a pair of conference championships in 1984-85. Ten Sleep went 19-8 in those three years combined, including back-to-back 7-2 seasons in the two conference championships.
Times worth forgetting: Football died for seven years at Ten Sleep, and bringing it back may have not seemed like the best idea after looking at the scoreboard the first few years it was back. After returning to the field in 1972, the Pioneers won just two games the first three years they were back, going a combined 2-23 from 1972-74. That included a forfeit loss to Dubois in Ten Sleep’s first scheduled game back from its seven-year hiatus. Numbers have always been Ten Sleep’s big question mark; the Pioneers also canceled their 1990 season and played truncated seasons in 1992, 1994, 2007 and 2008 due to a lack of players.
Best team: In the final year of the Bighorn Basin’s rogue eight-man division, the Pioneers proved they were ready for the transition to 11-man. In 1976, Ten Sleep went 7-0, holding its final five opponents to a total of six points. For the season, the Pioneers outscored their foes by an average of 39-5. In ’77, the Pioneers went 6-1 in their first full-fledged year of 11-man.
Biggest win: The Pioneers’ only playoff win in program history came in 2005, a 29-14 victory over Rapelje/Ryegate, Mont., in the opening round of the Montana six-man playoffs. It was Ten Sleep’s first year in the six-man division in the Big Sky State, and the victory helped assure the Pioneer faithful that the move was the right one.
Heartbreaker: Jumping into 11-man play in 1977, the Pioneers adapted quickly, winning their first six games to set up a showdown with Meeteetse in the final game of the regular season. The stakes were simple: winner goes to the playoffs, loser stays home. And, on Ten Sleep’s home field, Meeteetse won — 32-26 in double overtime. It was the best chance at success Ten Sleep had for years; the Pioneers didn’t reach the postseason until 1984.

Ten Sleep team page.

Updates: Mostly LaGrange and Coaches Project, with some Pine Bluffs, Huntley, Deaver-Frannie, Manderson

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The only football season I’ve found for the LaGrange Longhorns came in 1961, and for the past few years I had only found one game for that season — a 46-13 loss to Lingle.

Well, this week, I finally found some more info on the Longhorns’ 1961 season and I’ve added five more games to the Longhorns’ history. Sadly, for LaGrange, it didn’t get much better.

From what I’ve found, LaGrange finished the 1961 season with a 1-5 record. This week, I added four new games to the LaGrange season — a 27-6 loss to Bushnell, Neb., on Sept. 23, a 47-0 victory over Lyman, Neb., on Oct. 21, a 25-20 loss to Harrisburg, Neb., on Oct. 24 and a 15-7 loss to Pine Bluffs on Oct. 28. I also added a 25-8 loss to Huntley on Oct. 5 (a game that had been on the missing games list).

Here are the other updates I’ve recently made:

Coaches Project: Recent updates for Basin, Byron, Cowley, Dayton, Deaver-Frannie, Encampment, Farson, Greybull, Hanna, Hulett, Huntley, LaGrange, Lander, Lingle, Manderson, Moorcroft, Morton, Ranchester, Reliance, St. Mary’s, St. Stephens, Saratoga, Snake River/Baggs, Sundance, Sunrise, Superior, Wheatland, Worland Institute.

My new pet peeve school is Huntley. I need names of coaches for Huntley more than I need them for any other school at this point. Any help that anyone can toss my way as far as the Cardinals are concerned would be greatly appreciated…. To see everything I’m missing, click here.

Missing games: Found the score for Deaver-Frannie’s 40-0 victory over Manderson on Oct. 5, 1957. I also noted that two games — the Encampment-Hanna game on Oct. 18, 1957, and the Meeteetse-Burlington game on Nov. 1, 1957 — were canceled because of flu outbreaks.

All the updates have been made on all the relevant pages.

–patrick

Five Minute Introduction: Saratoga

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

School: Saratoga
Nickname: Panthers
Colors: purple and yellow
Stadium: Robert Hileman Field
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: Starting in 1974 and stretching through 1977, Saratoga put together one of the best stretches in history. Over those four seasons, the Panthers went 30-4, posting 14 shutouts. Saratoga didn’t give up more than 20 points in any of those 34 games and only 10 opponents cracked double digits on the scoreboard. The Panthers’ four losses were by a combined 18 points.
Times worth forgetting: Four years, one victory: That’s the conundrum the Panthers faced from 1966-69. In those four years, the only win the Panthers could manage was a 17-12 victory over Burns in the 1968 season finale — a win that snapped a 26-game losing streak, including a streak of 15 shutout losses in their previous 18 games. But the Panthers couldn’t capitalize on that one win and went 0-8-1 in 1969.
Best team: For all the struggles Saratoga went through in the late 1960s, the mid-1970s must have felt like heaven. The best team of that bunch was the one from 1974, in which the Panthers split a mythical state title with Tongue River after an 8-0 season. Saratoga gave up just six points all season and scored 348, one of the most dominating seasons in state history.
Biggest win: Football doesn’t often give second chances, but that’s exactly what Saratoga had in 1975. After losing to Guernsey-Sunrise 16-12 on Oct. 10, the Panthers’ playoff chances rested on another shot against the Vikings just 18 days later. The second time around, the Panthers held top-ranked Guernsey-Sunrise to just 109 total yards and, behind Steve Shaw’s two touchdowns, beat the Vikings 20-6. It was Guernsey-Sunrise’s only loss of the year and gave Saratoga its first playoff berth. Saratoga went on to beat Upton later that week for its first playoff victory and a berth in the first Class B championship game of the modern era.
Heartbreaker: Although Saratoga has lost its two championship games by a total of seven points, the biggest heartbreakers came in the form of not getting a chance to play for the championship at all. After a Class B runner-up finish in 1975, the Panthers went 7-1 in both 1976 and 1977 but didn’t qualify for the playoffs in either season. That’s because both times, the Panthers lost to Guernsey-Sunrise for the southeast district’s playoff spot — both times by 14-8 scores. Saratoga lost in the regular-season finale in 1976 in Guernsey and in the fourth week of the 1977 season in Saratoga.

Saratoga team page.

Shutout (or shut out) for the season? Not in Wyoming.

by ⋅ 2 Comments

My domination post the other day got me really interested in Wyoming’s best defensive (and worst offensive) teams. Admittedly, it’s easier for me to look this up, rather than the best offensive (and worst defensive) teams, based on how my database is set up, but I hope to post something this summer about the top offensive teams in state history…

Now that that’s out of the way… It still somewhat suprises me that no team in Wyoming, at least from 1946 to the present, has ever gone unbeaten, untied and un-scored-upon. Three teams, though, have come close.

Upton in 1971 and both Saratoga and Torrington in 1974 have special distinctions no other Wyoming teams can claim. These three teams are the only teams that gave up points in only one game of their seasons, and these three teams are the only three to allow fewer than 10 points in a season. Every other team in Wyoming’s history allowed points in at least two games of their seasons (of teams that played at least four games), which makes the defensive work accomplished by these three teams that much more special.

Saratoga and Torrington only gave up six points in their separate 1974 seasons, Saratoga in an 8-0 season run while Torrington in a 9-0 campaign. Upton gave up eight points in 1971 while compiling a 7-0-1 record.

For comparison, here are the team’s respective dominating seasons:

Saratoga 1974
Coach: Mike Koulentes
S6/1974 Burns 0 Saratoga 12
S13/1974 Lingle 0 Saratoga 28
S20/1974 Saratoga 40 Hanna 0
S27/1974 Saratoga 52 Glendo 6
O2/1974 Saratoga 51 Bow-Basin 0
O11/1974 Saratoga 70 Guernsey-Sunrise 0
O18/1974 St. Mary’s 0 Saratoga 60
O25/1974 Pine Bluffs 0 Saratoga 35

Torrington 1974
Coach: Jim Wiseman
A30/1974 Douglas (SD) 0 Torrington 27
S6/1974 Kimball (NE) 0 Torrington 10
S13/1974 Lusk 0 Torrington 26
S20/1974 Torrington 27 Buffalo 0
S27/1974 Douglas 0 Torrington 49
O4/1974 Torrington 19 Glenrock 6
O11/1974 Newcastle 0 Torrington 42
O18/1974 Torrington 41 Wheatland 0
O25/1974 Torrington 22 Gillette 0

Upton 1971
Coach: Kent Morgan
S3/1971 Upton 28 Hill City (SD) 0
S10/1971 Arvada-Clearmont 0 Upton 39
S17/1971 Upton 16 Tongue River 0
S24/1971 Upton 14 Sundance 0
O1/1971 Big Horn 0 Upton 44
O8/1971 Midwest 8 Upton 26
O15/1971 Upton 0 Moorcroft 0 tie
O22/1971 Upton 16 Hulett 0
O29/1971 Glenrock Upton canceled-snow

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

However, there have been many, many more offensive teams that have failed to crawl out of single digits for an entire season’s worth of scoring. In fact, 10 teams couldn’t get into double digits when you added all their scoring for their season together (minimum four games). All of these teams only scored in one game of their seasons. They are:

Greybull 2000 (6 points, 0-7)
Hulett 1955 (6 points, 0-4)
Midwest 2007 (6 points, 0-7)
Mountain View 1978 (7 points, 0-6)
Normative Services 2003 (6 points, 0-6, although three games were lost by forfeit)
Saratoga 1967 (6 points, 0-9)
Sundance 1946 (6 points, 0-7-1)
Sundance 1952 (7 points, 0-8)
Sundance 1954 (6 points, 0-6)
Wyoming Indian 1978 (6 points, 0-7)

Additionally, seven other teams scored in only one game of their seasons — although that one game allowed them to break past the single-digit barrier. Those squads include:

Kemmerer 1954 (12 points, 0-7)
Meeteetse 1986 (12 points, 0-7)
Mountain View 1972 (20 points, 0-9)
Mountain View 1977 (14 points, 0-7)
Superior 1957 (14 points, 0-6)
University Prep 1949 (12 points, 0-5)
Wyoming Indian 1979 (18 points, 0-7)

What comes out of this? Well, going a season with only one touchdown is much more common than going a season only giving up one touchdown. I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising to me that there are more teams that have struggled to score than those that have dominated on defense. However, it still surprises me that Wyoming, at least since 1946, hasn’t seen a “shutout season” on either side of the ball. (Of course, this comes with the qualifier that I DO know that the Heart Mountain camp team in 1943 went unbeaten, untied and un-scored-upon, and that some of the older teams from back in the ’10s and ’20s probably accomplished the feat, too.)

–patrick

Five Minute Introduction (times four): Albin, Dayton, Pavillion, Superior

by ⋅ 2 Comments

School: Albin
Nickname: Wildcats
Colors: red and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: Albin was consistently decent, winning at least one game in each of the shortened seasons from 1946-50, including the only multiple-win season that I can find, a 2-1 campaign in 1946.
Times worth forgetting: The Wildcats went four seasons with only one victory, and only played one more game after that victory, ending the program after a 1-6 season in 1955.

Albin team page.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

School: Dayton
Nickname: Elks
Colors: blue and red
Stadium: Unknown
State championship: 1953
Times worth remembering: The Elks had a relatively successful run before combining with Ranchester to form Tongue River in 1956, including four consecutive conference championships from 1952-55 and a state championship in 1953.
Times worth forgetting: The Dayton program was extremely successful for its short span In fact, it had only two losing seasons – an 0-2-1 campaign in 1949, the first full-fledged year of the program after World War II, and a 2-3 season in 1951.

Dayton team page.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

School: Pavillion
Nickname: Panthers
Colors: red and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: It didn’t take long for Pavillion to gain respect. After a 1-7 season in its 1959 premiere, the Panthers went 7-1 in 1960, reeling off seven victories in a row to start the season before falling to Shoshoni in the season finale.
Times worth forgetting: The Panthers’ biggest struggles came in back-to-back seasons in 1962 and ’63. Pavillion went 2-6 in 1962 and 1-6-1 in 1963, losing five times by shutout while failing to climb out of double digits 12 times in 16 games. The 1963 season was particularly tough; the Panthers only scored 26 points all season and the only victory came in a 2-0 slugfest against Meeteetse.

Pavillion team page.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

School: Superior
Nickname: Dragons
Colors: purple and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: After finding mixed success against Class A schools through 1957, the Dragons dropped to Class B play in 1958 and immediately became a powerhouse. Superior posted three consecutive winning seasons from 1958-60, including a 7-0 season in 1960. In those three years, Superior went 18-3-1. However, none of the seasons, not even the 1960 undefeated season, resulted in a playoff berth.
Times worth forgetting: The Dragons knew when they were in above their heads. Superior’s last year of Class A play was in 1957, a year in which the Dragons posted an 0-6 record. The team was shut out five times in those six games and scored only once, in a 25-14 loss to Saratoga.

Superior team page.

Superior team page.

Newsbreak: New coach in Rawlins

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Rawlins hired a new head coach (Rawlins Daily Times). … Rawlins joins Jackson as schools in 3A that will have new coaches next fall. Do you know of any other schools making changes at the top? Post a comment below or e-mail me at pschmiedt@yahoo.com.

–patrick

Updates: Lingle, Manville, Cokeville, Mountain View, Moorcroft, Big Horn, Albin, Sunrise and a whole bunch of coaches

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

It’s spring break here in Laramie. What that means for me is more time in the Coe Library basement. I’m mostly chipping away at 1941 right now, but I’m spicing things up by tossing in an occasional Coaches Project or Byes Project search. Here is some of what I’ve uncovered/updated in the past week or two:

Coaches Project

Recent updates have been made for Arvada-Clearmont, Basin, Big Horn, Burlington, Byron, Cokeville, Cowley, Deaver-Frannie, Greybull, Guernsey, Hulett, Lander, Lingle, Manderson, Moorcroft, Morton, Pinedale, St. Mary’s, St. Stephens, Saratoga, Sunrise, Superior, Ten Sleep, Thermopolis, Tongue River, Wheatland and Worland Institute.

Wheatland has been particularly difficult — the list I worked with to start was full of errors — but I think I’ve got most of it straight now.

New games

Added Lingle’s game with Harrison, Neb., on Oct. 12, 1951 (and added it to the missing games list because I couldn’t find a result)

Added Lingle’s 39-12 victory over Manville on Oct. 26, 1951

Added Cokeville’s 53-0 victory over Mountain View on Sept. 11, 1959

Missing games

Removed a game between Moorcroft and Big Horn scheduled on Oct. 3, 1958 (Big Horn didn’t have a team that season)

Noted the Nov. 8, 1957, game between Moorcroft and Big Horn was canceled

Added Lingle’s victory over Harrison, Neb., on Oct. 7, 1953 (and left it on the missing games list because I couldn’t find a final score)

Removed a game between Albin and Lingle on Oct. 24, 1952 (Albin didn’t have a team that season)

Added the score for Lingle’s 34-12 loss to Lyman, Neb., on Sept. 14, 1951

Noted the Nov. 2, 1951, game between Lingle and Sunrise was canceled

–patrick

Five Minute Introduction: Upton

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

School: Upton
Nickname: Bobcats
Colors: blue and white
Stadium: B.F. Weaver Field
State championships: 1961 and 2005
Times worth remembering: The Bobcats were consistently their best in the five-year stretch from 1969-72, in which Upton went a combined 35-6-3. The Bobcats’ best finish came in a 7-0-1 1971 season in which they ended up second in the final statewide poll; Upton’s chance to take on top-ranked Glenrock in the final week of the 1971 season went by the wayside due to a late October snowstorm that slammed the state. Upton also finished fourth in the final Class B-C ballot in both 1969 (7-2) and 1970 (7-1-1).
Times worth forgetting: Back-to-back winless seasons in 1949 (0-7) and 1950 (0-6) were the hardest for Upton to trudge through. In those 13 losses, the Bobcats were shut out six times and failed to crawl out of single digits on all but two occasions. On average, Upton lost games those two seasons by a score of 30-4.
Best team: Although the 1971 team only gave up eight points in its mythical runner-up season, and although the 1961 team won the school’s first state title, the Bobcats’ best pound-for-pound team likely came in 2005. Led by seven first-team all-state choices, including CST Super 25 first-team choices Jason Watt (2004) and Dan Dysart (2005), the Bobcats finished that season 10-1 and whitewashed Guernsey-Sunrise 55-6 in the 1A championship. Upton’s only loss was a 26-19 nail-biter to eventual 2A champion Sundance — in Sundance. Outside of that, the Bobcats outscored foes by an average of 36-5, as only one opponent came within 19 points.
Biggest win: The good feelings from Upton’s 1961 championship only lasted so long, and by 2005 the Bobcat faithful were ready for another trophy. After cruising through most of the regular season with ease and wiping out Shoshoni by 52 points in the 1A quarterfinals, Upton traveled to Cokeville for a key semifinal game. Unfazed by both the Panthers’ tradition and the 500-mile one-way trip, the Bobcats played a flawless defensive game and Dysart scored the lone touchdown in a 7-3 victory. Confidence boost? You bet — Upton breezed past defending champion Guernsey-Sunrise by 49 points the following week in the 1A championship in Guernsey.
Heartbreaker: Upton put up the type of defensive effort needed to beat Cokeville in the 1998 Class 1A-D2 title game, holding the Panthers to just 111 yards of total offense. But the Bobcats’ offense never came through. Upton had four turnovers, including a fumble on a punt that led to Cokeville’s game-winning touchdowns, and the Bobcats lost 12-7. It was Upton’s second title-game loss in as many years.

Upton team page.