When Prairie View made its first-ever appearance in the state football playoffs last season, they received a rude welcome. The No. 13-seed Thunderhawks were thumped 47-6 by No. 20 Grandview in the first round.
“Grandview, a 20-seed last year. Yeah,” Prairie View coach Todd Riccio said as he laughed. “… It was brand new to us, we didn’t know what to expect.”
Welcome to the big leagues. Flash forward to today: the Thunderhawks finished the regular season with a school-best 8-1 record, including 7-0 in Flatirons League play, and are set to host Lakewood (7 p.m. Friday) as a No. 4 seed.
“Going into the playoffs this year, we’re just preaching to them it’s another football game,” Riccio said. “… We can go compete with these teams now. It’s not a guessing game for our kids.”
The Thunderhawks rely on a run-heavy offense, led by running back RJ Ramirez. Part of a two-headed backfield with Cole Barone in 2013, the senior has picked up the slack after Barone’s graduation, rushing for 1,227 yards and 14 touchdowns in nine games this season.
“He’s no secret to anybody this year,” Riccio said. “We had to come up with some different schemes and finding different ways of giving him the ball.”
On defense, big Ben Burnett (6-foot-5, 225 pounds) has been terrorizing opposing offenses. The senior defensive end has recorded 12.5 sacks and 17 tackles for a loss. His play has earned him interest from CSU-Pueblo, his coach said.
“He’s the anchor and emotional leader of our defense,” Riccio said.
Prairie View will need both sides of the ball to play well if they want to beat the Lakewood Tigers (5-4), which lost three of its games by a touchdown or less, and could have finished 8-1 themselves.
“We’re going to go to this challenge against Lakewood and take another step in this journey into building this program into something we want it to be,” he said.
While the third-year Thunderhawks coach said his team is completely focused on their next game, but when the playoff brackets were released Monday, they couldn’t help but notice a potential opponent if they advance to the second round.
“After they saw the brackets they said, ‘So, Grandview, huh? If we beat Lakewood?’ I said, ‘Yep, Grandview again. We’ll go shock the world,’ ” he said with a laugh.
