School: Southeast
Nickname: Cyclones
Colors: blue and white
Stadium: Teeters Field
State championships: 1980, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
Times worth remembering: Seven championships in 11 seasons – the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st has been good to the Cyclones. Southeast won three titles in a row from 1999-2001 and four straight from 2006-09. Southeast went 9-1 each year from 1999-2001, winning 1A-Division II titles in 1999 and 2000 and a 2A title after reclassification reorganized the schools in 2001. Then, more recently, the Cyclones went 10-1 in 2006, 11-0 in 2007, 9-2 in 2008 and 10-1 in 2009, winning a 2A title in 2006 and 1A titles in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Times worth forgetting: Southeast’s record is pretty impeccable, but the three years from 1994-96 helped the Cyclones appreciate their success. In that span, the Cyclones were a combined 3-18, including an un-Southeast-like 11-game losing streak.
Best team: Of Southeast’s two undefeated teams, the nod goes to the 1980 team that went 9-0 and won the school’s first state championship. That year, the Cyclones averaged 33 points per game and only gave up about six on average, only twice allowing teams into double digits. Even more impressive is that the Cyclones won both their playoff games on the road, beating Midwest — the team that had knocked Southeast out of the playoffs the year before in Yoder — at Midwest before destroying Cokeville 38-8 in Cokeville in the title game.
Biggest win: Southeast met Lusk in some unusual circumstances in the 2001 title game — both teams were two-time defending state champions. The battle lines were drawn soon after reclassification placed both teams in Class 2A, and the two teams did not disappoint during the regular season or playoffs, setting up a dream matchup that had ramifications well beyond the end of the season. The Cyclones played up to the moment, as Byron Booth scored both touchdowns for Southeast, including the game-winner in the fourth quarter of a 14-7 victory in Yoder.
Heartbreaker: Southeast’s main heart-snapper has been Cokeville, which has busted the Cyclones’ dreams twice in the playoffs in gut-wrenching style. The first such occurrence came in the 1993 1A semifinals, when Ricky Himmerich’s two-point conversion in overtime gave the Panthers a 22-21 victory; the Panthers went on to win the 1A title. The other came in the 2003 1A championship, when Nathan Fiscus snuffed out Southeast QB Alan Moore’s two-point conversion attempt in the final moments of the fourth quarter, the deciding play in the Panthers’ 14-13 win.
The ’79 SE-MW playoff game was played in Torrington, not Yoder. Big mistake. The wet thick grass (instead of the short dead grass of Yoder) played into the hands of the bigger, stronger & slower MW team.