Pack football drops third straight against Western Colorado, fall to 1-2 on the season

The CSU Pueblo ThunderWolves hosted Western Colorado on Saturday afternoon at the ThunderBowl. The two top 25 ranked teams battled it out with the Mountaineers coming away with the 30-14 victory over the Pack.

The ThunderWolves hurt themselves with too many penalties, mistakes and turnovers early in the game. The defense for the Pack did all they could to keep this game close but were gassed by the end due to the amount of time they spent on the field.

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First-half woes spell second-half doom

The first half was costly for the ThunderWolves as the home team could not get out of their own side of the field on their first two possessions. In fact, the Mountaineers were able to score early off a blocked punt to take a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.

Right after the score, the Pack fumbled the kickoff and gave the ball right back to the Mountaineers. The defense held the visiting team to a field goal; however, they went down 10-0 early. Later in the first quarter, the ThunderWolves scored on a 70-yard punt return by Andrew Cook to make it 10-7.

However, the Mountaineers were not done scoring in the first half. Midway through the second quarter, Deyvon Butler scored his second touchdown for the Mountaineers to make it a 17-7 game. Four minutes later, the away team kicked a field goal to make it 20-7.

The Pack’s defense was working hard in the second quarter to keep it close, but with under a minute left in the half, Western Colorado scored again with a one-yard rushing touchdown by Drew Nash to make it 27-7 at halftime.

The second half started off promising as the Pack were able to score on their second possession of the quarter. Kiahn Martinez ran it in from six yards out to cut the lead to 27-14. However, that was all the Pack could really muster in the second half. More mistakes and miscues on offense lead to punts the rest of the way for the Pack.

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A field goal by the Mountaineers late in the third quarter made it a 30-14 game, and pretty much made it out of reach for the Pack to come back. The defense was visibly gassed on the field at this point but still managed to get the offense the ball back with about four minutes left in the game.

Again, the ThunderWolves were forced to punt and give the ball back to the Mountaineers. With about a minute left on the clock, the Pack got the ball back, but stalled out on offense and the game ended with the score 30-14 in favor of Western Colorado.

The ThunderWolves' head coach Philip Vigil spoke after the game about how his team still needs to work on a lot of things if they expect to compete for an RMAC title this season.

“We didn’t play well enough but give credit where credit is due. Western came out and did a really good job on defense and on special teams and we didn’t match that on offense or special teams,” Vigil said. “We had two blocked punts today and another one tipped. Offensively in the first half, it was extremely stagnant and outside of really one drive in the second half it was the same thing.

"We have to find a way to move the ball offensively, and we have got to find a way to sure up our protection on punts. Our defense played well today, they were just out there for way too long. They were on the field for the entire game and that’s something we have to get fixed.”

Vigil is very much of the mentality that when the game is over, you learn from it and move on, regardless of the outcome. With his focus now shifting to the No. 2 ranked team in the nation, Colorado School of Mines, his goal is to get his team ready for this matchup and get back in the win column.

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“The approach does not change,” Vigil said. “We talk about it every single week, we prepare for a faceless opponent. Our approach needs to stay the same, we still have a lot of season in front of us, and we have the number two team in the county coming in next week. We need to get back on track and we need to keep the same approach.”

The ThunderWolves face off against the Colorado School of Mines at 2 p.m. next Saturday at CSU-Pueblo ThunderBowl.

Christopher Abdelmalek is a sports reporter for the Pueblo Chieftain and can be reached at cabdelmalek@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @chowebacca. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: CSU Pueblo lose to Western Colorado, drop to 0-1 in RMAC