Pine Creek looking to compete with the best in Colorado

(COLORADO SPRINGS) -- Pine Creek football is looking to establish a consistent winner, and there's no time to make excuses for how their season ended last fall.

"We come in this year with like a win-or-go-home mindset," senior running back Xavier Lukes said.

These Eagles are ready to spread their wings and fly higher in the 5A ranks this season.

"I feel like we got more talent in the last year and all the sophomores are juniors, we got some young guys that are pretty good," senior Brady Walden said.

After having three head coaches in three years, the Eagles now have a coach coming back for a second year in Trevor Hudson. He now looks to continue to establish consistency while competing with the best teams in Colorado.

"When you play Cherry Creek or Legend or Valor's of the world, you've got to bring your best game," Hudson said. "There's no such thing as a as a lay up game in 5A football."

A young Eagle squad did find a way to the postseason last fall with a 7-3 record. But they also learned valuable lessons taking on the 5A power house squads.

"The biggest thing I took away from playing the best of the best is that it's really a mentality thing it's not a physical thing," Lukes said. "If you come into the game thinking they're bigger, they're better, they're going to do this to us, then it's probably going to happen."

But with the lessons planted, the seeds of their growth will look to sprout this fall as the Eagles return most of their offense with a similar o-line, skill players but will start a young quarterback under center. But chemistry at the line of scrimmage will look to take the pressure off their signal caller.

"They start it all so with that O-line being set up, it's going to be perfect for the rest of the field to open up," Lukes said.

Pine Creek will have tougher challenges in the latter part of the season with a battle against Valor Christian set for Oct. 15. This group will start their season down in the sunshine state against Western High School on Aug. 28.

"We want to be a national brand, so you can't be national if you don't go outside state," Hudson said.