{"id":26133,"date":"2024-08-16T18:27:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T18:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-football-looking-to-turn-heads-this-fall\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:33:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:33:45","slug":"bears-football-looking-to-turn-heads-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-football-looking-to-turn-heads-this-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears football looking to turn heads this fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael
Michael Rantz takes the ball down the sideline for a Dolores first down. Sam Green\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

When the Dolores football team made the transition from 11-man to 8-man football a couple seasons ago, the Bears plunged headfirst into arguably Colorado\u2019s toughest league in small-school football.<\/p>\n

With a steep learning curve during that span, the Bears (2-7 in 2023) hope that the improvements they implemented last fall carry over into bigger leaps in 2024 \u2013 and if so, Bear football fans have plenty to be optimistic this season.<\/p>\n

DHS welcomes in new head coach Travis Rantz, who steps up from his assistant role to take the helm for a youthful squad.<\/p>\n

Rantz brings back a bevy of talent from last year\u2019s squad that posted the program\u2019s best win total and most points scored since 2018. Included in that returning group, junior Michael Rantz demonstrated himself to be one of the most dynamic players in the Mountain League, serving as the team\u2019s top receiver and special teams returner. Along with Rantz, senior Tray Traweek, who started at quarterback his first three years in black-and-red, has taken on the vocal leadership to push their teammates this offseason.<\/p>\n

Anchoring the line, senior Micah Vrtatko has played a pivotal role in the Bears\u2019 ability to control the point of attack. \u201cMicah really stepped up for this summer, and we\u2019re happy to see him really taking on a leadership role,\u201d mentioned the head coach of his nose guard.<\/p>\n

The wrestling team connection, with DHS wrestling coach Casen Eldridge also on Rantz\u2019 coaching staff, has brought an elevated work ethic to both sports. Dual sport athletes Jacob Stepp, Nathan Hill, and River Wickstrom, along with newcomer Aidan Sweat and junior Deven Winter emerged through the offseason.<\/p>\n

Travis Rantz, who coached many of the current athletes during their middle school years, looks forward to the challenge of playing in a league that boasts the last two state champions. He\u2019ll lean on his coaching staff to each provide a different element to practices while the Bears continue to gain cohesion on the field. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a good rapport with the athletes,\u201d said Rantz of his background with the kids, \u201cand it\u2019s nice to have those different layers within the coaching staff, from the fire-up coach (Eldridge) to the discipline coach (Dustin Russell) \u2013 I\u2019m able to step back and direct traffic,\u201d said Rantz.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuous improvement, that\u2019s what we\u2019re wanting,\u201d added Rantz, \u201cwe\u2019ve had kids going to camps, hitting the weights, doing the workouts throughout the offseason \u2013 and that\u2019s going to help create that improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears get into the season with a new opponent for their opener, when they face Justice on Friday, Aug. 30 at 2 p.m. in a neutral site game at Sargent. After a trip to Monticello on the following Friday, the Bears open their home schedule with three straight weekends on their home turf. The Bears play Rangely on Sept. 13 at 7 p.m., before their homecoming game against Whitehorse on Sept. 20. Mancos pays a visit on Thursday, Sept. 26 to open up league play.<\/p>\n

From there, the Bears face the rest of the Mountain League slate, facing Sargent (Oct. 4) and Dove Creek (Oct. 18) on the road before returning home to face Sanford (Oct. 25) on Senior Day. The Bears cap off the regular season with a trip to Norwood on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids are playing as a unit and feeding off each other,\u201d said Rantz, \u201cthere\u2019s no friction in the locker room, and they\u2019re able to stay positive \u2013 and that\u2019s the mentality that we\u2019re taking into each practice \u2013 and it\u2019s a good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travis Rantz steps into head coach role<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16722,"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-26133","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\/26133","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=26133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79241,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133\/revisions\/79241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26133"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}