Photo by Bryan Oller. Nate Gentzel passes during the Mustangs’ Sept. 30 game. Jarrin Hall and Ashur Lavigne are in the background.

What the Manitou Springs football team saw on Oct. 7 was a team dedicated to competing for a state championship. The only problem was that team stood on the visiting sideline.

Florence rolled into town and struck fast and often to get a 60-0 win over the Mustangs (3-3 overall, 0-2 Tri-Peaks).

“It’s all about becoming bigger, faster and stronger,” coach Stu Jeck said. “We have good athletes and kids that can think well, but whoever was at that game on Friday, they saw a team that was bigger, faster and stronger in every spot.”

He also pointed out that the Huskies were a much older team. Jeck hasn’t been shy to hide his excitement about the freshman and sophomore class, and as much as he has worked to build a foundation within the program, youth can still put any team at a disadvantage.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Manitou make some changes, specifically on the offensive side of the ball. When competing against a team in Florence that will make noise in the Class 2A playoffs, weaknesses can certainly be spotlighted.

“We’re going to play like we should play rather than how people want us to play,” quarterback Nate Gentzel said. “We’re not that big so we’re just going to have to get our athletes in space and let our offense do what it should.”

The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Mustangs; they travel to Alamosa this week to take on the Mean Moose. It will be Manitou’s last road game of the year before hosting La Junta and Lamar in the season’s final two weeks.