Scoring records blown up (Ten Sleep 93, Guernsey-Sunrise 56) plus some bonus trivia

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The score posted today for the six-man showdown between Ten Sleep and Guernsey-Sunrise — 93-56 Pioneers — sets a new state record for combined points for two teams. The 149 points scored between the two teams breaks the old record of 138, set in a six-man game last year between Ten Sleep and Kaycee; the 93 points Ten Sleep scored is second all-time (behind a 96-point performance by Deaver-Frannie in 1975) for points by one team in a game.

Click here to see the state’s all-time single game scoring records. (Remember, these records only cover the years 1933-2009. The records also come with the knowledge that at least two teams broke the 100-point mark in a game prior to 1933 and at least one more game included a 96-point performance by one team.)

The opposite end of the spectrum — the lowest scoring games — is something I don’t post anymore due to an excessive number of scoreless ties in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. But, as I was sitting at Deti Stadium last night and Kelly Walsh entered the fourth quarter with only a 3-0 lead on Laramie (KW eventually won 10-7), I got to thinking about some low scoring games, too.

I tried to remember the last 3-0 game in the state and I couldn’t remember it. That’s when I decided it would be a good trivia question. After I found the answer, I decided another trivia question was also apropos. So here it is, in two parts:

Name for me the last game involving a varsity Wyoming high school team to end 3-0… and then name for me the last big-school game (Class 4A currently, Class 5A 2001-08, Class 4A prior to 2001) to end 3-0. (Hint: It should be pretty obvious, but they’re not the same game.)

Then, as I thought about that, I thought, “Wait, 2-0 is lower combined than 3-0.” So, the third part of the low-scoring trivia triumvirate:

Name for me the last game involving a varsity Wyoming high school team to end 2-0. (Hint: It’s only been done twice since 1989. Bonus points if you can get them both.)

For every wrong answer, I’ll post a hint. Post your guesses as a comment on this blog post. Let’s see how many guesses it takes to get to the answer… if we ever get there!

Oh, and I’m still amazed at that 93-56 final. At 149 points for 40 minutes, that’s almost four points per minute combined. That is some crazy offense.

(By the way, anyone heard anything about Kaycee-Farson?)

–patrick

WHSAA charts course for 2011 and 2012 seasons

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While the 2010 football season is not even half done, the focus of the early part of this week will be on the 2011 season.

The Wyoming High School Activities Association has its first quarterly meeting this week in Casper, and reclassification — like it is every two years — will be on the board agenda.

For football, most of the changes are precipitated by Cheyenne South’s entry into the field, WHSAA Commissioner Ron Laird said Monday. Laird said the WHSAA, for now, is planning on sticking with the format it currently uses for football, with the 10 largest schools in Class 4A, the next 12 in 3A, the next 16 in 2A and the remainder in the two divisions of Class 1A.

Right now, Cheyenne South occupies the No. 9 spot. However, the WHSAA approved on first reading back in April to classify South in Class 3A for football in 2011, then to move the Bison to Class 4A in 2012 (this proposal still has to pass one more vote of the WHSAA board this week).

The schools most affected by this decision are Riverton at No. 11, which may or may not be in 4A for the 2011 season only, depending on how the WHSAA handles South’s entry and the imbalance it will create in 2011, and Green River at No. 12, which for now is slated to move to Class 3A football for both 2011 and 2012 but has voiced a desire to opt up to 4A.

Other schools expected to move classifications for football are Wheatland (from 3A to 2A) and Wyoming Indian (from 2A to 1A). Oddly enough, both schools would have changed classifications even without South’s entry due to dropping enrollments.

Also, both Hulett and Dubois have announced their intentions to move to the six-man division of 1A for 2011 and 2012, Laird said. No other schools are joining the division and none of the current six-man schools are moving to 11-man, Laird said, giving the classification 10 schools for 2011 and 2012. Class 1A 11-man is anticipated to have 15 teams those two years.

For non-football classifications, anticipated moves based on current enrollment standings include South into 4A, Star Valley from 4A to 3A, Thermopolis from 3A to 2A and Lingle from 2A to 1A.

The WHSAA board will meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Casper.

–patrick

Hulett forfeits 2010 season

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Hulett will not field a varsity football team in 2010.

Micki Tucker, activities director at Hulett, said in an e-mail the Red Devils had trouble fielding a full team for the 2010 season. She also said a sub-varsity schedule for the Red Devils is still in the planning stages.

The Wyoming High School Activities Association will tally the games as forfeit losses for Hulett, Associate Commissioner Trevor Wilson said. Hulett is in the Class 1A 11-man East Conference.

The eight teams on Hulett’s schedule for this fall can fill the open week with another game, although the game will be a non-conference game and will not count toward playoff seeding. (When teams officially schedule new opponents, I will post that information here and will also update the 2010 schedule and results page.)

The Red Devils went 4-4 last season, but missed out on a playoff spot after losing their season finale to Pine Bluffs, 22-20.

Hulett had moderate success in the mid-1990s, finishing as state runners-up in Class 1A nine-man in 1992, 1993 and 1994 and in Class 1A Division II in 1996. The Red Devils advanced to the state semifinals as recently as 2008 in Class 1A.

The program last failed to field a team in 1982. The Red Devils also played a sub-varsity schedule in 1981.

–patrick

Six-man’s roots in Wyoming

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With the time period I’m exploring right now, it only makes sense that I’m also finding my interest in the roots of six-man football being piqued, as well.

The late 1930s and early 1940s were an amazing time for the development of six-man football in Wyoming. The six-man game, of course, started in 1934 in Chester, Neb., the brainchild of coach Stephen Epler. The first six-man game was played on Sept. 26, 1934, and by the late 1930s the game had spread across the Midwest states — including Wyoming.

Actually, the game didn’t take long to cross the eastern border from Huskerland. The Moorcroft Chamber of Commerce page references Moorcroft beating Gillette in Wyoming’s first six-man game in 1934 — the year of the game’s introduction. I haven’t dug into finding out more about this game yet, but you can bet I will soon…

Anyway, the six-man game really took off, and by 1941, more than 30 teams in the Equality State were playing the sport. In fact, in 1941, some of the smaller schools in the southeastern corner (Yoder, Veteran, Chugwater, Hawk Springs, Huntley and LaGrange) organized a TOUCH six-man league. LaGrange beat Chugwater 7-6 in the championship game that year… but Hawk Springs was so intrigued by the game that the Hawks actually suited up and played a couple full-contact games that season (they lost to Glenrock, one of the best six-man teams in the state that season, 20-16, then later lost again to the Herders 25-0 and to Albin on Armistice Day).

This research also turned up something interesting: a school in Fort Washakie. I didn’t know Fort Washakie had a high school before the current incarnation of Fort Washakie Charter, but apparently it did. I don’t know much about the school — the team was generically referred to as the Indians, their colors were never listed and photos of the team never appeared, so if you know more about the Fort Washakie school, let me know.

Who was all involved in this? Well, by 1941, Byron, Cowley, Deaver-Frannie, Burlington, Meeteetse, Manderson, Ten Sleep, Worland Institute (the boys school), Shoshoni, Pavillion and Fort Washakie out of the Northwest; Big Piney, Pinedale, Lyman, Reliance, Superior, Snake River, Saratoga, Encampment, Farson and Hanna out of the Southwest; Arvada, Big Horn, Dayton, Ranchester, Clearmont, Moorcroft and, sometimes, Upton out of the Northeast; and Glenrock, Manville, Glendo, Burns, Carpenter, Pine Bluffs, Albin, Guernsey and Hawk Springs out of the Southeast, were playing six-man with some form of regularity.

Then, on Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor happened, and America reorganized its priorities, nearly snuffing out six-man in Wyoming for good. Many small schools postponed play for the duration of the war, or played seasons in which travel restrictions limited the squads to one or two games for the entire season. The programs in Fort Washakie, Carpenter and Hawk Springs didn’t survive past the war; the others came back, eventually, but only a select few survived intact in either six-man or 11-man forms through to today.

There are a couple reasons I am so interested in six-man’s history. One is pretty clear: Six-man football came back to Wyoming in 2009. The new classification has renewed my interest in digging into the archives. Second, it seems like every time I find something, it leads me somewhere else. The intertwining paths these schools followed are pretty amazing. Third, as I work backward, I keep searching for indications that I’m coming close to the end of this research… and if I can get to 1933, I can probably come close to closing the history on 30-some Wyoming football programs… and that gets me jazzed. 🙂

Anyway, here are some more six-man linkages:

Click here for a story from American Profile with a reference in the comments section to the six-man winning streak record Byron set back in the day (and how it was broken by some school in South Dakota)

Click here for a historical six-man page with copies of some of the original news articles from 1934

Click here for a Sublette.com page that references Pinedale’s first six-man game in October 1938

–patrick

It’s time for Jerry Hill to get his due

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Stumbling through some six-man football research last week, I found something interesting.

It took me a moment to fit the pieces together.

And now that I have, I’ve convinced myself these pieces form some kind of anti-Wyoming conspiracy, somehow tied to the “Wyoming doesn’t exist” craze or the Sacajawea grave debate.

The center of this omission centers on mid-to-late-1950s six-man football in Wyoming (don’t all the greatest debates start here?). More specifically, it has to do with Lingle’s Jerry Hill, and his tie to another NFL great, Jack Pardee.

Numerous sources — Wikipedia, the San Antonio Express-News, TXPrepsFootball, chacha.com and a ton of others —  list Pardee as the only former six-man high school player to ever make it to the NFL.

Well, as we in Wyoming know, Pardee isn’t alone.

Hill was, of course, a star at the University of Wyoming (he was voted by fans as the school’s best player of the 20th century) before playing in the NFL with the Baltimore Colts for nearly a decade, including appearances in two Super Bowls. He has long been revered in Wyoming for his gridiron exploits in Laramie and Maryland… but his start in Goshen County has been obscured by the passage of time.

Conversely, Hill doesn’t get much credit for his six-man high school experiences in Lingle. In fact, Googling Jerry Hill’s name in combination with the terms “six-man” or “6-man” turns up nothing about what Hill did for the Lingle Doggers back in the late 1950s.

Why does Pardee get the credit and not Hill? Well, I’m sure that has something to do with tradition. Six-man football is quite the tradition in Texas, where Pardee played in high school and college; in Wyoming, the fall traditions are more closely tied to the brown and gold team in Laramie and to killing things. Hopefully, though, this little blog post keeps Pardee from taking ALL of the credit for six-man success in the NFL.

Not that Pardee would, of course. It’s just that for a long time Hill hasn’t had his due in leading the charge for six-man players’ NFL aspirations.

–patrick

Montana, Idaho, six-man changes and mercy rules

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Somehow, Montana’s recent changes to its football makeup slipped past me, and I only recently found out that the Montana six-man league is going back to “just” a Montana league.

If you remember, the Montana league was the home for Wyoming squads Meeteetse and Ten Sleep for several years before those two programs came back to the Equality State when the WHSAA formed the state’s new six-man division that started play last year.

However, the Montana league also included a pair of Idaho teams — Clark County and Leadore — in its league in recent years. But with the Wyoming teams heading out, and with an eight-man option available in Idaho, the Montana High School Association didn’t include the Idaho schools in its recent reclassification work.

Neither Leadore nor Clark County had programs as of 2006, so both programs were relying on a long-term stay in Montana to survive. As it is, both programs are going to be forced to transition to eight-man… or find another place to play.

For now, both squads will be playing in Idaho’s eight-man Sawtooth Conference. You can read about Leadore and Clark County getting boot from Montana league, or more on the Sawtooth Conference reformation.

For those of you thinking Wyoming might open its arms to the two Idaho schools, think again. Travel concerns will likely squash those ideas right away. Consider this: It’s about 300 miles from Guernsey to Meeteetse… but another 250 from Meeteetse to Clark County (in Dubois, Idaho) and about 340 from Meeteetse “through the Park” to Leadore. Oof.

One other quick note comes from Montana, where the Big Sky staters made changes to their mercy rules. …

–patrick

In defense of Guernsey

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When the 2009 season is viewed in retrospect, the Guernsey Vikings’ season will stick out as the epitome of domination.

In Wyoming’s first year of organized six-man football in more than half a century, the Vikings were clearly the best team. They won all but one game by at least 40 points and finished with a 614-144 scoring advantage in a 9-0 season.

Guernsey’s dominating season had some folks wondering why the Vikings opted to play 11-man in the first place. The Vikings clearly had enough speed and strength in the backfield to compete with most teams in the 11-man division; in fact, several times during the state championship game, the radio broadcaster from Buffalo (who sat right behind me, and the reason I’m writing this) suggested the WHSAA get involved and move the Vikings up to 11-man where they belonged.

Here is the best I can do to mount Guernsey’s defense:

Point 1: The Vikings only had 12 players suited up for the championship game, a 76-16 whitewash of Kaycee. Guernsey didn’t have any more players come out than that; the numbers really were that low all season long.

Point 2: The championship game blowout was due in part to the Vikings’ experience. Kaycee was in its first year of football; the football legacy in both Guernsey and Sunrise stretches back nearly a century. It’s not surprising that, for the most part, the teams that did best in the six-man division in 2009 were the teams that had established programs in place.

Point 3: Despite its dominating success, Guernsey won’t be the six-man favorite in 2010. More than half of the Vikings’ players were seniors, and only one starter returns.

Point 4: Few people know this one, but it speaks to the parity you’ll see in coming years. Farson, which finished last in the six-man West Conference and didn’t come within 42 points of any varsity program it played this fall, will be competing with Guernsey by as soon as next year. How do I know this? The Pronghorns’ junior high team beat Guernsey this season.

Guernsey made the right choice, and no one should question it for the reasons pointed out above. And the way they won games shouldn’t call into question that decision.

Rather, the 2009 Guernsey Vikings should instead just be celebrated for what they were: an incredibly dominating six-man football team, the likes of which the state may not see again for a long time.

It just so happened the Vikings put together this domination in the first go-round. Just don’t let that freak you out — either about the Vikings or about six-man football.

–patrick

Kaycee, Ten Sleep establish new record

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Kaycee’s 71-67 over Ten Sleep set a new unofficial state record — most combined points in a game.

The 138 total points the Buckaroos and Pioneers tallied on Saturday broke the old record of 132, set in Meeteetse’s 84-48 loss to Reedpoint, Mont., in 2003. It’s the most points scored by two Wyoming teams since Lingle and Huntley combined for 123 points in Lingle’s 89-34 victory in 1962.

Ten Sleep’s 67 points also sets a record for most points scored by a losing team.

As always, these records come with a qualifier — these records are built from the records that are on this site from 1951 to the present. Any game between 1951 and now that somehow escaped being found wouldn’t be listed among the records….hence the record being technically unofficial.

Anyway, it must have been a lot of fun (or a lot of stress) being in Kaycee on Saturday. Congratulations to both sides on what looks like, at least from the final score, a great game. Don’t forget, these two teams will meet in the first round of the playoffs in two weeks in Ten Sleep.

You can click here to see all the unofficial state scoring records. I’ll update the page at the end of the season.

–patrick

Meeteetse addition

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This was supposed to be the week Meeteetse played Fort Washakie…. but with the Eagles out of the picture, the Longhorns have picked up a game this week. Meeteetse will host Lovell’s JV at 3 p.m. Friday. Check it out if you have the chance.

–patrick