School: Shoshoni
Nickname: Wranglers
Colors: blue and yellow
Stadium: Bailey Field
State championships: 1959 and 1985
Times worth remembering: There’s a reason why Shoshoni’s field is named after coach Harold Bailey. From 1976-87, the Wranglers didn’t have a losing season, compiling an overall record of 75-22, including a 9-1 1985 season that culminated in the Wranglers’ second state championship.
Times worth forgetting: When Bailey took over the program in 1975, he was assuming the reins of a squad that won just one game in the previous three seasons. The 1972 Shoshoni team went 1-8, but somehow it got worse. The 1973 team went 0-8-1, but somehow it got worse. The 1974 team went 0-9, and finally it couldn’t get any worse.
Best team: Led by speedy, shifty junior Orlando Cordova in the backfield, the 1959 Wranglers were rarely challenged on their way to the Class B championship. Shoshoni’s biggest win of the season came in the first game of the year, a 13-7 thriller over perennial favorite Byron; from there, only St. Stephens put up any kind of challenge before Shoshoni again beat Byron in the championship game. On average, the Wranglers won by a 31-6 score — an offensive and defensive juggernaut unlike few others seen in the low-scoring 1950s.
Biggest win: After several close calls in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Wranglers finally won a state championship for coach Bailey in 1985, beating Seton 18-7 in the 2A title game. Shoshoni trailed 7-6 late but scored two touchdowns eight seconds apart in the final minute and 20 seconds to pull away. A six-yard scoring run by Jeff Campbell gave Shoshoni the lead and a nine-yard interception return for a touchdown by Lance Bolt on Seton’s first play of its subsequent drive sealed the championship.
Heartbreaker: Finally in the playoffs, Shoshoni let its best opportunity slip away by a single point. The Wranglers, despite 6-1 records in 1976 and 1977, couldn’t make it into the postseason, but those shortcomings helped fuel an 8-0 regular season in 1978. In the Class B semifinals against Cokeville, though, the Wranglers let that work slip through their fingers in a 7-6 loss. Despite outgaining the Panthers 203-161 and despite scoring first on a 65-yard pass from Rick Pingetzer to Russ Ackerman in the first quarter, the Wranglers couldn’t convert on the extra point — and that was all the margin Cokeville needed. Cokeville blasted Lingle in the championship game the next season; Shoshoni, which lost first-round playoff games in 1980 and 1984 before winning the state title in 1985, was left to lick its wounds.