Manitou gained momentum through season, returning players ready for next year

Manitou Springs’ Chad Sienknecht felt the hand of a Lamar defender strip the football from him at a crucial moment in the fourth quarter of Friday’s game at Manitou. And as the ball rolled away, so did the Mustangs’ chances of finishing the season with a win.

“I was running and I tried to pitch it and he just knocked it out of my hand,” Sienknecht said.
Lamar recovered the ball and broke the game open with two touchdowns on two plays, handing the Mustangs a  54-26 loss.

Manitou finished the season (5-5) and did not make the Class 2A state playoffs. Lamar (8-2) is playoff bound and will meet Holy Family (8-2) at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

“We made some mistakes and it cost us but it wasn’t for a lack of effort,” Manitou Springs coach John McGee said.

“We had mistakes here and there, they got some touchdowns and it looked worse than it was.”
The Mustangs kept the game within nine points going into the fourth quarter, successfully making fourth-down conversions to maintain possession.

“(The fourth-down conversions were) just to keep running the clock and the ball in our possession because we had trouble slowing that offense down,” McGee said. “Give them credit, they moved the ball well. They’ve got some good athletes.”

Though the lopsided score would indicate otherwise, the Mustangs competed well against the 2A Tri-Peaks’ second-ranked team. Manitou started the season 0-3, but improved each time they played.

“I think we’ve come a long way from the beginning of the season,” senior Taylor Utt said.  “We’ve overcome adversity and really started clicking as a team.”

“If you watched us play in the first game or two, we were getting five first downs, we were fumbling the ball. We made leaps and bounds,” McGee said. “The credit goes to the kids ... whatever it took to turn things around, give them the credit.”

The Mustangs will lose several play makers to graduation. Still, the pieces are in place for a young, but motivated team.

“The young kids seem very motivated, they’re very competitive,” McGee said.  “If we can get them in the weight room and keep them focused, we’re going to be young but I think we can be competitive.”