Coming out of undoubtedly the best season in Perry football history with a 12-1 record for 2017, the Pumas are feeling good heading into the state finals. They played No. 1, Mountain Pointe, Friday, Nov. 17 for the 6A semi-finals and after a long game, the Pumas reigned victorious over the Pride, 56-31.

Head coach Preston Jones expressed his excitement for the boys, especially the seniors who have just one more shot at a state title. Jones said, “the seniors have one shot at this, and I’m just so happy for those guys. I’m just so excited for them to have that opportunity.”

All of the players had a phenomenal game Friday night, offense and defense alike. The boys have been working towards this goal since each of them joined the Varsity team.

Junior wide receiver, Colby Dickie said, “this has been our plan since last year when we got to the semifinals and lost, so we knew we had to come back this year and actually win the game,” Dickie continued saying, “we’ve just been working so hard for this.” Dickie had a great game on Friday, assisting his team in the win over Mountain Pointe.

Three-year varsity player, senior linebacker Cutter Hatch “can’t really put it into words,” as to how he was feeling, he continued saying, “we knew freshman year that we wanted to make history and that’s what we did tonight.” The emotion on the field was incredible as the clock counted down and the boys realized that the game was won. It has been a goal that each varsity team was working on, and finally this team has achieved it.

Junior defensive back, Kellen Simmons said, “coming into this game we knew we had to do our jobs and make our tackles, we knew they were a tough team, but coming out now we are more confident than ever.” The team had a very strong defense on Friday and had no trouble shutting out Mountain Pointe’s offense.

This will be the first time in years that the Pumas will have the opportunity to play in the state finals. They will be facing off with defending champions, Chandler Wolves on Dec. 2 at the University of Arizona.