“It has been great, man, and it’s still going.”
And it should for Pueblo West football coach Monte Pinkerton, whose Cyclones’ fun run through the Class 4A playoffs was capped Dec. 1 at Invesco Field at Mile High with a stirring 21-14 victory over Monarch.
It was decided with 27 seconds to play, but it will remain timeless for the rest of certain teenagers’ days.
Call it a smart, organizational piece composed by gritty Pueblans, which is practically redundant, who astutely followed a Pinkerton man who happens to be a former college dropout.
The 43-year-old Pinkerton, the Denver Broncos 2007 high school coach of the year, oversaw a series of new heights while the rest of 4A watched and wondered.
It wasn’t so much a lack of respect as it was a “Who are these guys?” approach. No one knew.
“And no one gave us much of a chance,” Pinkerton said with more understanding than gloating. “We had never been here, and we’re a fairly new school.”
Pueblo West entered 2007, its second in 4A, with a nine-year mark of 32-55, all but its first two in 3A. The Cyclones jumped to 4A in 2006, went 5-5 and began the past season unranked, but were a possibility to challenge in the Pikes Peak League.
Their opener resulted in a 24-21 defeat at Pueblo County, the preseason 3A No. 1 as well as Pinkerton’s alma mater and former assistant-coaching stop.
It was a wake-up call equivalent to being toasty and comfy under the covers, then having someone dump a bucket of ice water on your head.
Gasp!
Pinkerton called it “tough, but you know what? These kids realized nobody would lay down for us or hand us anything. A lot of determination came out of that, and we were a lot more spirited in practice.”
In order, Pueblo West next waxed Mitchell, Cañon City, Widefield and Pueblo East by an aggregate 190-41, but made a couple of crucial mistakes against Pine Creek in a 27-23 loss.
Two blowouts later, the Cyclones fought off Fountain-Fort Carson, the league favorite, 14-6, then warmed up for their second postseason by drubbing Rampart 42-10.
“Our kids started to realize that we can play with some of the best teams if we take care of our business,” Pinkerton said.
The 4A regular season is one thing, its playoffs quite another. A Colorado-high 55 teams play for 16 spots, and its first-round matchups make 5A’s ridiculous 32-team lineup look like offseason scrimmages.
“To me, it’s the most competitive,” Pinkerton said.
He has proof — the Cyclones’ 12-10 home decision of potent Mountain Plains challenger Dakota Ridge was uplifting. Pueblo West had only one other playoff showing, in the 1999 2A preliminaries, resulting in a 45-0 whipping.
And here’s where it really began to turn interesting — in their first-ever meeting against crosstown South, which had owned the Steel City for the past decade, the Cyclones prevailed 20-10 in the quarterfinals in front of about 10,000 fans (eat your hearts out, Denver-area folks) at Dutch Clark Stadium. Next they persevered 21-14 at previously undefeated Broomfield and star running back Ryland Snow in a frigid semifinal.
“(Broomfield) was big, and he’s a ram,” Pinkerton said. “It was close to zero (degrees). A lot of people and the refs said it was the coldest game they’d been to. That was something else.”
So was the final and the week-long buildup to it. Monarch, the preseason No. 6, had only a loss to Cherokee Trail in Week 2 on its resume, and its deliberate rushing attack and defense were feared.
Meanwhile, others didn’t even know Pueblo West’s mascot was the Cyclones.
“We didn’t mind a bit,” Pinkerton said. Fact was, he added, “we should have been the underdogs.”
The Cyclones gave up an early field goal in a smashmouth finale, but mostly carried the play. And they didn’t blink when Monarch tied the score at 14 with 5:16 to play. Ultimately, Bo Martinez’s 11-yard reception from Chaz Vaughan clinched the first football title for Pueblo — the Cyclones finished 12-2 — since Centennial in 1992.
Fullback-linebacker Tony Chavarria was big as was Joe Torres, who stepped in as the Cyclones’ top rusher when the speedy Justin Jackson battled season-long injuries. Linemen Zak Muñoz and Craig Rush and two-way back Zach Fillmore were solid in 2007, and junior Andrew Williams came up with six key tackles in the title game.
Out of coaching for eight years, Pinkerton’s third season as the head coach of the Cyclones made him wonder why he ever left.
A two-way player in high school, he was at Fort Lewis for two years, when Gary Barnett was on the staff before heading to the University of Colorado, then Pinkerton “stopped going to class.”
But he returned to school “as a totally different guy,” earned degrees in chemistry and biology, completed a master’s, and is proud of the fact “you don’t have to go to our gym to find the football coach.”
And proud Pueblo doesn’t have to thumb through annals to find its most recent state champion.
“This town is crazy about it,” Pinkerton said. “It’s an old Pueblo thing.”
Schoolboy football salute
When: Sunday, Dec. 30
Where: Invesco Field at Mile High
Game: Minnesota Vikings at Broncos, 2:15 p.m.
Program: The Broncos, who have hosted segments honoring schoolboy football since 1996, will feature the best in Colorado coaches, players and teams from 2007 at their final game of the season.
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
