School: Pine Bluffs
Nickname: Hornets
Colors: purple and yellow
Stadium: Carlstrum Field
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: The Hornets were a tough team to beat in the 1960s and early 1970s, going 11 years (1963-73) without a losing season. Pine Bluffs was a combined 55-29-4, including a school-best 7-1 season in 1963. That span also included two years in the Minuteman Conference in western Nebraska.
Times worth forgetting: The late 1990s were a time of constant rebuilding for the Hornets, who went a combined 7-27 from 1996-2000, including an 0-7 season in 1996. The problem wasn’t that the Hornets weren’t competitive — they were — they just couldn’t keep games close. Of those 27 losses, 22 were by at least 20 points.
Best team: By record alone, the 1963 Hornets were the best of the bunch. After losing to Glenrock 20-2 in the season opener, Pine Bluffs rattled off seven consecutive victories. The Hornets didn’t win their games by wide margins, but the offense was efficient with almost 27 points per game and four of the seven wins were by double digits.
Biggest win: Despite a 5-1 regular-season record, the Hornets had to go on the road for the first two rounds of the 1994 playoffs. After easily beating Moorcroft in the first round, the Hornets trekked to Byron to play highly rated and Northwest champion Rocky Mountain. The Hornets weren’t fazed, though — they controlled the game from beginning to end and earned a place in the state championship game with a 35-21 victory.
Heartbreaker: Just one week after the big win over Rocky Mountain, the Hornets experienced the other side of playoff football in a 17-8 loss to Cokeville in the 1A state championship — a game that started with senior Matt Davison being carted off the field in an ambulance and ended, more or less, with two devastating second-half turnovers. It was Pine Bluffs’ second championship-game loss to Cokeville in four years; the Hornets haven’t been back to a state championship game since.