Pioneers season ends shy of postseason

“It’s all over. The party’s over,” said an exasperated Cripple Creek-Victor head coach Richard Dispenza after his team fell 38-6 to Byers on Oct. 31 at Bennett High School with playoff implications on the line.

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “We just ran out of gas.”

A win and the Pioneers would have finished 5-4 overall and 3-2 in league play and still be playing next week. Instead, CCV is staying home for the postseason yet again.

“I thought they had one more left in them, but I guess not,” Dispenza said. “I was real impressed with what they were able to do this year though. Even though they didn’t get over .500 they had a heckuva season. They gave it a valiant try.”

Byers took an early 6-0 lead on the Pioneers in the season finale, then added a safety as the half drew to a close.

CCV, which overcame three late first-half interceptions, keeping Byers out of the end zone further, answered with a score of its own on a 3-yard touchdown run by Kyle Hamacher. The Pioneers went for two to tie it, but came up short.

After that, Dispenza said, the wheels came off.

“We thought we would be able to run the ball against them today and just couldn’t,” he said. “That’s a good football team we lost too. We just didn’t have enough spunk.”

It didn’t help matters either that CCV senior and leading rusher Kyle Tapia played with a sore Achilles’ heel.

Tapia still managed 106 yards on 15 carries, finishing the year with 1,631 yards and 15 touchdowns, but according to Dispenza couldn’t run normally on his injured leg.

“With Kyle hurt and his carries limited, we just ran out of weapons,” he said. “Our defense played as hard as they could and did a great job in the first half. We just had too many penalties and couldn’t overcome them.”