<\/p>\n
Stephen Candelaria is going out on top.<\/p>\n
The 2012 Montezuma-Cortez graduate will graduate this month from Colorado School of Mines as a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference champion.<\/p>\n
The Orediggers football team last won a share of the league title in 2014, and they split the RMAC this season after finishing with an 8-2 league record.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one thing that was a little bit different about this group this year was the chemistry,\u201d Candelaria said. \u201cThere was just something really electric about the team and I think we knew from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an example, Candelaria explained how after starting the season 2-2, the team pulled together to rattle off seven consecutive wins to end the regular season at 9-2, win the RMAC, and secure a spot in the NCAA Division II playoffs.<\/p>\n
Then, the No. 21 ranked Orediggers upset No. 17 Southwest Baptist University in the first round with a 63-35 road victory to record the program\u2019s first playoff win since 2004.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou dream about doing stuff like that as a kid,\u201d said Candelaria. \u201cWe beat three top 25 teams and won the RMAC championship and went to the playoffs \u2013 and that was really special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mines\u2019 season concluded in the second round with a 38-17 loss to Ferris State to finish with a 10-3 record. But the Orediggers did finish with Division II\u2019s No. 1 total offense and No. 2 passing offense, while allowing only 18 sacks in 525 passing downs.<\/p>\n
They were also fourth in the nation for fewest tackles for loss allowed while averaging 5.2 yards per rushing attempt and 207 yards rushing per game.<\/p>\n
Much of that offensive success stemmed from the offensive line, which boasted five all-RMAC selections, including Candelaria.<\/p>\n
For the second consecutive season, Candelaria was All-RMAC Honorable Mention as an offensive lineman.<\/p>\n
He was also honored for his work off the field, named an Allstate Good Works nominee in his final two years at Mines for his service work in the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stephen Candelaria celebrates RMAC title in final collegiate season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71409","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=71409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71409"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}