{"id":16109,"date":"2025-10-16T21:19:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T03:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-football-wins-league-championship\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:54:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:54:53","slug":"cortez-middle-school-football-wins-league-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-football-wins-league-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Middle School football wins league championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Montezuma-Cortez Middle School football team celebrates their league title and unbeaten season. Photo courtesy of Diana Smith<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

CORTEZ \u2013 The Panthers wouldn\u2019t let a league title slip away.<\/p>\n

After a season of dominance, the Panthers faced Miller (Durango) for the championship. Much like they had all season, the Panthers found a way, leaning on a stingy defense to stop Durango\u2019s final drive and send M-CMS to a 14\u201312 victory.<\/p>\n

M-CMS head coach Bryce Waggoner guided the Panthers to the finish line. It capped an exciting season and signaled the program\u2019s continued rise. After blitzing past opponents to the tune of an 185\u201340 scoring margin, M-CMS needed a few more big stops from its defense to seal the unbeaten season.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal was to play smashmouth football \u2013 and our defense is how we pulled it out,\u201d reflected Waggoner, as the Panthers responded to a fourth-quarter turnover by coming up with one more stand with Miller nearing the red zone for the go-ahead score.<\/p>\n

Waggoner credited the win to strong effort from the whole team. Braxton Thornbrugh and Zaine Brito scored M-CMS touchdowns, while Parker Spitzer made a key tackle late in the game to prevent a Miller score.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dedication these athletes showed toward each other and their coaches was a driving factor in our successful season,\u201d added Waggoner.<\/p>\n

M-CMS held on for the win under pressure. Just as encouraging for Waggoner and his staff was the strong support the team received from the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single game, whether it was home or away, was packed with support from parents, fans and our high school team,\u201d he lauded. \u201cThe culture feels like it\u2019s shifting in a positive direction \u2013 the community really stepped it up and backed these athletes\u2019 hard work and passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The B team also enjoyed a strong season, reaching the championship game in its division and finishing as league runner-up.<\/p>\n

After months of hard work, M-CMS football became more than a talented squad \u2013 they became a unified team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw a huge shift in togetherness throughout the season,\u201d said Waggoner. \u201cThey truly became a championship team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M-CMS Panthers finish season with unbeaten record<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20020,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109\/revisions\/20020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16109"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}