LAKEWOOD — Mead football knew its ride through 2022 would be bumpy.
A year after finishing runner-up in the Class 3A state playoffs, the Mavericks entered the new season with perhaps one of the toughest early schedules in the classification. On Friday night at Trailblazer Stadium, that strong slate haunted them in a 43-7 loss to third-ranked Green Mountain.
Prior to the contest, they had also suffered setbacks against No. 2 Durango and No. 5 Lutheran. Despite the early learning curve that has taken the Mavericks to a 1-4 record, that was just the way head coach Jason Klatt liked it.
“We’ve had schedules before where we’ve played a pretty light schedule in the beginning and we’ve blown through it, and then we’ve gotten to the end with not a whole lot of adversity and we didn’t really know what we were about,” he said. “In this situation, we know what we’re about because in tough times, true character is revealed. That’s where we’re at right now and some more character is going to be revealed tonight.”