School: Sundance
Nickname: Bulldogs
Colors: red and white
Stadium: Bulldog Stadium
State championship: 2005
Times worth remembering: Back-to-back one-loss seasons in 1968 and 1969 were Sundance’s best sustained multi-year effort; however, the great seasons didn’t earn the Bulldogs much respect outside the northeast corner. The 1968 team finished 8-1, with only a 21-20 loss to Newell, S.D. in the season finale — a game decided in the final minute — marring its record, but finished seventh in the final statewide poll. The 1969 team also went 8-1 and lost only to Upton, but finished sixth overall (Upton was fourth). The back-to-back one-loss seasons were part of a bigger seven-year streak from 1965-71 in which Sundance did not have a losing season.
Times worth forgetting: It took four years in the early 1950s for Sundance to figure out its place. From 1951-54, the Bulldogs didn’t win a single game, racking up a 0-27-2 record, at one point matching a state record by going 33 consecutive games without a victory. In 1955, the Bulldogs dropped to six-man play — and posted a winning record.
Best team: The 2005 Bulldogs finally gave the red and white faithful the state championship they had long been awaiting. Sundance went 10-1 that year with the lone loss a 22-20 thriller to Big Horn. In the playoffs, the Bulldogs outscored their opponents 88-6, including a 40-0 whitewash of Wright in the 2A title game. The Bulldogs had nine first-team all-state players, almost twice as many as any other squad.
Biggest win: The lone championship game victory Sundance has ever had — the 40-0 win over Wright in 2005 — was an exercise in domination. The Bulldogs put the game away early, building a 19-0 first-quarter lead and then riding the strength of its defense to the trophy. The Panthers had only 30 yards of total offense, and 20 of those came in the final moments against the Bulldogs’ backups.
Heartbreaker: The 1990 reclassification came at just the right time for Sundance, which fell into Class 1A-11 man play just as a talented, athletic group of players was finding its stride. The players didn’t prove that hunch wrong, rolling up an 8-0 record, including a 23-20 squeaker in a semifinal victory over Burns, to reach the state title game for the first time in school history. But once there, Cokeville – the perennial favorites in the 1A division – controlled the game from start to finish, picking off four Sundance passes throughout the game, and knocked off the top-ranked Bulldogs 20-6.