WHSFB HQ — The Wyoming high school football blog

School: Newcastle
Nickname: Dogies
Colors: orange and black
Stadium: Schoonmaker Field
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: The Dogies underwent a renaissance of sorts when Erv Wentling took over as coach before the 1977 season. His first two seasons, the Dogies went a combined 14-2, and in his first five years Newcastle compiled an overall record of 32-8 and made the school’s only state championship game appearance (1981).
Times worth forgetting: Few teams have had a rougher five-year stretch than the Dogies died from 2001-05. In those five years, the Dogies won just two games, going 2-39 — at one point losing 29 consecutive games. Back-to-back winless seasons in 2002 and 2003, in which Newcastle was shut out nine times and lost 14 of 17 games by at least 25 points, were the low point of the streak.
Best team: Newcastle played some of its best football in the late 1940s, including what was probably the program’s best season in 1949. That year, the Dogies went 8-2, losing its season opener to Hot Springs, S.D., and its season finale to Cody in the Class A semifinals. In between, the Dogies won eight consecutive games and gave up only 40 points in those eight games, winning all but one game by at least 14 points.
Biggest win: After a 1-6 regular season, the 1996 Dogies were expected to be nothing more than first-round cannon fodder for 2A West champion Kemmerer in the first round of the playoffs. But no one told the Dogies. Jason Logan scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns – and, maybe more importantly, kicked two extra points – as the Dogies rallied from a 26-13 fourth-quarter deficit to come away with a 27-26 victory. The victory is the school’s only playoff win to date and inspiration for every Newcastle team to follow.
Heartbreaker: After 22 consecutive losing seasons, the 2006 Newcastle team finally made up for all the struggles of its predecessors. Until the playoffs. After losing its first two games, Newcastle won six games in a row and came into the playoffs with the No. 2 seed from the East and a home playoff game — the school’s first home postseason game in almost five decades. However, Big Piney, a playoff-savvy team that wasn’t fazed by the long trip east, gave the Dogies all they could handle. And then, with 2.4 seconds remaining in regulation, Seth Linn’s 15-yard touchdown catch — still disputed up in Newcastle as to whether or not it was caught inbounds — gave the Punchers a 12-6 victory and left the Dogies again on the outside of the championship hunt.

Newcastle team page.

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If you take a look at the scoring records page, you’ll see quite an influence from my last update. Although it makes sense to think that in this era of high-powered offense (and of six-man football), most of the updates to that page would have come from the 2010 season, it’s also interesting to note that the top two scoring games in state history now belong to games played in 1930 and 1932.

The new listing for most points scored by one team in a single game is the 113 points Cheyenne Central (then Cheyenne) put up against University Prep of Laramie on Halloween 1930. University Prep never had a chance, and for two reasons: one, the Buckaroos were not a good team, going winless in 1930 before dropping the sport for almost a decade; two, this game was never supposed to happen this way.

According to newspaper accounts of the game, University Prep made the trek over the summit to play what they thought was going to be Cheyenne’s junior varsity team. But the Indians, who otherwise had an open week, suited and played their varsity.

Even so, the game did not begin as a beat down. Prep actually matched the Indians’ first score and it was 6-6 early. Then the Indians unleashed the floodgates, and there was little the Buckaroos could do to stop it. The rest is 113 points of record-setting mayhem.

Meanwhile, the No. 2 highest scoring game since 1930 also came in the early 1930s — Lander’s 96-0 victory over Basin on Oct. 13, 1932. This was simply a case of a conference mismatch. Lander was in the midst of a great season; the Tigers finished 5-1-1. Lander was also one of the era’s few high-scoring offensive teams, as the Tigers put up 58 points on Riverton the week after the Basin blowout, then scored 77 against Ten Sleep a week after that.

Of course, 2010 had its impact on the lists, too — most notably with Ten Sleep. The Pioneers scored 93 points twice this season. How rare is that? Well, Wyoming teams have broken the 90-point barrier just six times since 1930, and two of those were accomplished by Ten Sleep in 2010. In addition, the Pioneers’ 93-56 victory over Guernsey-Sunrise set a new record for combined points in a game with 149, breaking the old record by an amazing 11 points.

Ten Sleep combined with two other teams this season, Meeteetse and Kaycee, to make three of the seven highest combined scoring games since 1930. That’s amazing.

Anyway, click here to check out the lists.

–patrick

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Well, the big update is done. The 1930, 1931, 1932 and 2010 seasons have been uploaded to the site. All the updates should be on all the relevant pages. If you don’t know where to start, check out the updated scoring records page and also the streaks page. I’ll have blog posts talking about the specific updates that those pages saw soon.

This site’s official total of logged games is now up to 20,814.

In addition to that, I’ve also made the following updates:

Coaches Project: In addition to adding coaches for 1930-32 and 2010, I’ve had updates for Cowley, Byron, Manderson, Hanna, Burlington, Huntley and Goshen Hole. Thanks to a few helping hands, Jerry Patrick in Burlington, Mark Bullington in Yoder and Shane Schaffner in Basin, for their help on this! Click here to see what I’m still missing.

Basketball: Mad props to someone only identified as Bill, who e-mailed me with the one score I was missing to complete my basketball tournament research — Rawlins’ 66-58 victory over Reliance in the 1953 Class A consolation semifinals. I now have listed EVERY SINGLE SCORE from the state basketball tournament, all the way back to its inception in 1918!! Yay! Thanks, Bill! (Is four exclamation points enough? No!)

Bill also caught an error I had listed in the 2000 Class 4A boys state tournament. Sheridan beat Central for the consolation championship that year. I had listed Natrona beating Sheridan for the consolation title after beating Central in the consolation semis; Central actually beat Natrona in the consolation semis before losing to the Broncs. The listing has been corrected to reflect this change.

If you didn’t know that I also list the scores from every state basketball tournament game on this site, too, well, I do. Click here to check those scores out.

–patrick

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School: Riverside
Nickname: Rebels
Colors: red and black
Stadium: Rebel Stadium
State championship: 2007
Times worth remembering: The Rebels’ only two championship-game appearances came in back-to-back seasons in 2006 and 2007. Combined, the Rebels went 19-3 those two seasons, losing the title game in 2006 but winning it in 2007 — the first state football championship for both the school and the community. Of Riverside’s 22 opponents, 17 were held to single-digit scoring.
Times worth forgetting: In its short history, Riverside has been a fairly consistent winner, but it took a few years to build the program. Riverside’s first five seasons were all losing campaigns, including a 1-7 season in 1988, the program’s second full-fledged season as the Rebels.
Best team: The 2006 and 2007 Rebels were near mirror-images of each other, and although the 2006 team had the better record, the 2007 team won the state title. The nod goes to the ’07 team in this case — that season, the Rebels won their three playoff games by a combined four points.
Biggest win: If you’re going to win a state championship, you might as well win it in style. That’s how the Rebels won their first and only state title in 2007. Down 20-13 late in the fourth quarter to Big Horn and with the ball on its own 1-yard line, Riverside drove 99 yards in six plays — capped with a scoring run by QB Matt Craft — to trim the lead to 20-19. Then, with the title at stake, the Rebels went for two, and Chanse Darling scooted across the line for the winning points.
Heartbreaker: The 2007 title-game victory was made a bit sweeter because of what happened in 2006. Carrying an unblemished 10-0 record into the championship game on its home field, the Rebels played almost a perfect game defensively against Southeast, allowing only 56 yards while forcing 11 punts. But the Rebels’ offense never got moving, and Riverside lost 8-6 — providing all the motivation needed for the 2007 title run.

Riverside team page.

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All-conference teams and Super 25 awards announced (Casper Star-Tribune).

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The folks over at wyopreps.com have posted this year’s all-state selections from the Wyoming Coaches Association. This year’s selections have also been added to my all-time all-state listings. I tried to catch all the misspellings, but if I missed one, let me know. Cool.

–patrick

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The Casper Star-Tribune announced its 20th anniversary Super 25 team on Friday, a selection of the 25 best high school players over the past 20 years. You can see the list here and read a story about a few of the players here.

I was one of the people who helped pick this list of players. In doing so, I got to thinking about an all-time all-state team and who would be on it. If we were to pick Wyoming’s 25 best players of all time, who would be on it?

I never got any further than the thinking stage, but it’s an intriguing question to pose. Who would be on your top 25 of all-time? Post some thoughts below, if you’re so inclined, and maybe someday I’ll get past the thinking stage about all this….

–patrick

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Douglas-Buffalo recap (Douglas Budget). … Douglas-Buffalo recap (Buffalo Bulletin). … Cokeville-Lusk recap (Lusk Herald). … Snake River celebrates (Rawlins Times).

–patrick

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The Casper Star-Tribune announced its annual Super 25 selections this morning. Click here to see a replay of the Star-Tribune’s first selection show as well as short bios on each player. The annual Super 25 special section will be a part of Friday’s edition; pick it up.

The annual Super 25 banquet — where the offensive and defensive players of the year and the coach of the year are announced — is Friday in Casper.

Here is this year’s Super 25:

Nelson Alzheimer, 6-1, 180, sr, OT/DE, Big Horn
Ward Anderson, 6-2, 170, sr, QB/SS, Wheatland
Andrew Blaylock, 6-0, 245, sr, C/DT, Cody
Trent Boner, 5-11, 190, sr, C/LB, Douglas
Josh Borm, 5-11, 185, sr, WR/S/K/P, Cheyenne Central
Clay Cundall, 6-0, 180, sr, QB/LB, Greybull
Jerit DeGering, 6-0, 170, sr, RB/DB, Lusk
Matt Eddington, 5-11, 170, jr, RB/CB, Evanston
Holden Fauber, 6-2, 190, sr, OT/FB/LB, Wright
Jake Hepp, 5-11, 195, sr, OL/LB, Buffalo
Kyle Hutchinson, 6-1, 290, sr, OT/NG, Sheridan
Jace Jensen, 6-0, 190, sr, FB/LB, Buffalo
Drake Kelley, 5-10, 180, sr, QB, Gillette
Dylan Klava, 5-8, 165, sr, RB/LB, Douglas
Jeff Lee, 5-10, 170, sr, WR/DB/KR, Evanston
Chance Maddock, 5-6, 146, sr, RB/DB, Cokeville
Cole Montgomery, 6-0, 185, sr, RB/DB, Natrona
Dawson Osborn, 6-2, 200, sr, OG/LB, Sheridan
Jordan Roberts, 5-11, 180, jr, RB/SS, Gillette
Lucas Rowley, 6-4, 210, sr, OT/DE, Natrona
Jim Shellenberger, 6-0, 185, sr, QB/LB/P, Natrona
Mitch Syverson, 6-2, 170, sr, QB/DB, Thermopolis
Kyle Vinich, 6-6, 195, sr, WR/DB, Natrona
Zack Will, 5-11, 170, sr, WR/S, Sheridan
Colby Wollenman, 6-6, 210, sr, QB/FS/K, Big Horn

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With the close of the 2010 season, I’m going through my annual process of uploading the 2010 season to the individual team pages and updating all the other pages that need updating.

You will probably see a few pages updated already, and others will be updated in the next couple weeks. There might be some discrepancies between pages for the next couple weeks while I chip away at updating the site.

Also, note that I’ll be uploading the 1932, 1931 and 1930 seasons in addition to the 2010 seasons. Again, there might be some discrepancies between pages, but just give me time and hopefully everything will get updated soon. Thanks for bearing with me through my annual update….

–patrick

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