School: St. Mary’s/Seton
Nickname: Gaels
Colors: blue and white
Stadium: Okie Blanchard Stadium
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: For years, St. Mary’s struggled against a Class A schedule, but after dropping to Class B in 1972 the Gaels finally found success. Their first year in Class B was their best — in 1972, St. Mary’s went 10-0 and had five shutouts on their way to the mythical state championship.
Times worth forgetting: From 1960-71, St. Mary’s never had a winning season. Consistently the whipping boys for teams like Torrington, Gillette and Lusk, the Gaels struggled throughout the 1960s, culminating with back-to-back 0-8 seasons in 1968-69. Those 16 losses were part of a bigger 21-game losing streak. The program’s official bottom came in the last game of the 1969 season, a 93-6 loss to Torrington that set a state record for most points allowed in an 11-man game.
Best team: Although the 1972 team went unbeaten, the single best team might have been the Seton team from 1985, which went 8-3 and lost to Shoshoni in the 2A championship game. Consistently tough defensively, Seton never gave up more than 18 points in any game — that being the 18-7 loss in the title game. The team had four first-team all-staters, a mark topped that year only by champion Shoshoni’s five.
Biggest win: The game that really needed to happen in 1972 — the one that would have pitted St. Mary’s against Glenrock for the mythical state title — never happened. But in the first game of the 1973 season, the Gaels traveled north to face the Herders in what basically amounted to a grudge match. It was the only game the two teams played against each other in the 1970s and, even though the teams were different, it still meant plenty to those players and coaches who were subject to the debate following the end of the 1972 season in which both teams finished unbeaten and claimed mythical state titles. St. Mary’s won 18-6, and put to rest — even if only in their own minds — the debate about which program might have won if the teams had played about 300 days prior.
Heartbreaker: The school’s only berth in an official state championship game ended in disappointment, as the 1985 Seton squad lost to Shoshoni 18-7 in Cheyenne. The 1985 season was the school’s first trip to the playoffs, and after a 7-6 upset of Moorcroft in the semifinals, Seton looked like the team of destiny. The Wranglers crushed those hopes, though, and the Gaels made the playoffs only one more time before the program ended after the 1990 season.