Last week, Dave Perkins gave this year’s Pueblo Central team a little something to think about before its first playoff game in nine years.
Perkins, who was the quarterback of the 1965 team that won the Class 3A state title, shared his team’s mantra: “It shall be done, Big Blue. It shall be done.”
“I want you to take it with you and make it your own,” Perkins told the 2009 team.
The ’65 title was the school’s sixth and most recent championship. Top- seeded Pueblo Central, which won its first playoff game last week since 1970, continues its quest Saturday at ninth-seeded Delta (9-2).
The game is one of four quarterfinals on the schedule, but the only one that pits two teams that until last week had gone nearly a decade without a playoff appearance and even longer without a victory.
Pueblo Central coach Dave Craddock, in his 16th season, played for Pueblo Central in the early 1980s. He coached this year’s Wildcats (11-0) to their first undefeated regular season since 1961 behind the running of Keanu Valdez (1,230 yards, 18 touchdowns) and a tenacious offensive line. And this was coming off a 3-7 season in 2008.
“Since last offseason, they’ve all worked hard,” Craddock said. “The summer commitment was fantastic. It started to build last January in the weight room, the preseason stuff, the great two-a-days. . . . As the weeks went by, the kids kept getting more confidence in each other.”
