Ladies and gentleman, pack your bags, we’re going to Grover.
Indeed, the town of Grover, home of the Pawnee Coyotes, set just south of the Wyoming state line in northern Weld County, will host Saturday’s Class A 6-man title game against Idalia.
“It’s basically in the middle of nowhere,” said Pawnee coach Doug Miller, who resides in Wyoming.
The seventh-seeded Coyotes (7-3) have stunned everyone in the 6-man world, with the exception of themselves, by getting to this point. They avenged a loss to undefeated Peetz in the first round; then trailing by 11 points entering the fourth quarter against a team they had surrendered 94 points to earlier in the season, rallied to eliminate Woodlin 53-48 last week.
“It was the old ‘there’s no tomorrow’ thing,” Miller said of his team’s approach to the final 12 minutes last week. “We sent three after (Harold) Klausner, got a couple of onside kicks, and the kids just turned it around.”
The brothers Light, quarterback Bo and running back Shawn, accounted for all three of the Coyotes’ scores in the fourth quarter. Shawn caught a 13-yard pass from Bo late to give them the lead for the first time in the game.
“It seems shocking to everyone else that we made it this far,” Miller said. “At the beginning of the season, this was our goal. It has been all along, and I always thought we were better than our 5-3 regular season indicated.”
Said Idalia coach Tim Gribben: “I’ve heard nothing but good things about them. We played them in Otis at the beginning of the season last year, when a lot of them were juniors, and walked away thinking they were going to be pretty solid down the line. Hopefully, the bracket played out, and we got the two best teams.”
Pawnee is in search of its first football title since a 1954 victory as Grover High against Carbondale 57-18.
The Coyotes made the final in 1988 and again the following two seasons as a co-op program with Briggsdale.
Idalia’s sixth title-game appearance in seven years did not come easy. The Wolves trailed defending champion Hi-Plains 22-0 at halftime last week, and with one second left still found themselves trailing 30-24.
A 36-yard pass from Blake Cure to Lucas Devlin as time ran out tied the game at 30-30. Freshman kicker Jonathan Castillo split the uprights to give Idalia the 32-30 win.
“It was the most exciting football game I have ever seen,” said Gribben, whose team was knocked out in the semifinals 27-26 by Hi-Plains in 2004. “We put so much pressure on ourselves, and so much emphasis on that game, that we were just hoping to get that Hi-Plains monkey off our backs.
“Now, all we have to do is go out and play Idalia football this week.”
Idalia (11-0) is in search of its fourth title since 2000.
Jon E. Yunt can be reached at 303-820-5446 or jyunt@denverpost.com.
