| Pirates
lead early, then lose home opener
The Prairie football team held an early lead but then got worn down by the Clearwater Valley running game as they lost their home opener 20-58 at Cottonwood Friday, Sept. 10. 
The Pirates were playing with heavy hearts after learning earlier in the day of the death of fellow Prairie student Jacob Riener. The team honored Riener by putting JR on the back of their helmets and the junior class did a tribute and prayer circle at halftime. The emotion may have helped the Pirates early on. Prairie forced C.V. to punt on their first two possessions and after a 3 and out on their own first possession, put together a 74 yard scoring drive on their second. 4 pass completions from Mat Forsmann to Phil Henry accounted for most of the yardage with Forsmann picking up additional yards rushing the ball. The touchdown came when Forsmann rolled out to the left and found Henry wide open down the middle for a 14-yard scoring play on the first play of the second quarter. Forsmann ran in the 2-pointer to make it 8-0. Prairie barely had time to celebrate their score though as C.V. quarterback Lowell Wilson took the ensuing kickoff and ran it back 80 yards for C.V.’s first score. The conversion try failed with Prairie hanging on to an 8-6 lead. Prairie answered right back as Kelby Wilson took C.V.’s kickoff at the 27 and ran toward the left side and took the ball all the way to the 1 yard line for a 72 yard return. Forsmann ran a quarterback sneak on the next play to give Prairie a 14-6 lead. The conversion try failed. It didn’t take the Rams long to tie the score though as runs of 22 yards and 44 yards led to another touchdown. This time they scored the 2-pointer to make it 14-14. After a scoreless first quarter the two teams combined for 4 touchdowns within 1:16. C.V. started to grind out yardage on the ground. They had a long drive going when they turned the ball over on a fumble with Ryan Daly recovering for Prairie at the Prairie 27. Unfortunately Prairie gave the ball right back on an interception 2 plays later.  C.V.
took over at the Prairie 31 and took their first lead 7 plays later.
C.V. looked to be headed toward another score late in the half but James Hood intercepted a pass deep in Prairie territory as the half ended. Prairie had a bad start to the second half as they fumbled the ball away on what would have been a first down run. C.V. then took the ball and rove downfield to another touchdown. Prairie answered right back as Brandon Johnson returned the kickoff 21 yards to the Prairie 47. On the next play Henry got behind the defense and Forsmann lofted a pass to him. Henry caught the ball at about the CV 40 and took it all the way in for a 53 yard scoring play. That cut the lead to 20-30. C.V. answered back with a long scoring drive and then picked up another quick score when they intercepted a pass and ran it all the way back for a score. Prairie then got down to the C.V. 27 before turning the ball over on downs. C.V. put together another long scoring drive to make it 20-52. Prairie then fumbled the ball away again, this time on the kickoff, and C.V. scored again to make the final margin 20-58. Prairie showed a lot of improvement offensively over their first game, mostly in the passing game. Forsmann completed 9 of 24 passes with 2 interceptions for 163 yards. Henry caught 5 passes for 113 yards and 2 touchdowns. Wilson caught 2 passes for 25 yards with Daly catching 1 for 14 yards and Hood 1 for 11 yards. The Pirates gained 55 yards rushing led by Forsmann who had 25 yards on 16 carries. That includes losses of 30 yards on 6 sacks. Wilson added 2 1yards on 8 carries and Daly had 9 yards on 3 carries. C.V. piled up 525 yards rushing as they had 3 players go over 100 yards rushing led by Wilson who had 160 yards on 17 carries. Eric Jackson, their bowling ball of a fullback at 5’8” and 192 lbs. gained 130 yards on 15 carries and Tim Jones gained 129 yards on 17 carries. They added 27 yards passing as they completed 2 of 9 passes with 1 interception. Forsmann and Wilson were Prairie’s leading tacklers as Forsmann had 8 unassisted tackles and 6 assists while Wilson had 5 solos and 8 assists. Hood had 4 solos, 4 assists, 1 sack and 1 interception. Chris Schumacher had 3 solos and 3 assists. Ryan Osterbuhr had 3 solos, including 2 sacks, and 1 assist. Jacob Holthaus had 3 solos and 1 assist. Daly had 2 solos, 3 assists and a fumble recovery. Clark Tacke had 1 solo and 4 assists. With the loss Prairie drops to 0-2 on the season. This was a non-league game so they remain 0-1 in league play. Their next game is this Friday at Lapwai at 7 p.m. C.V. 0 22 8 28 -58 Prairie 0 14 6 0 -20 P-Henry 14 pass from Forsmann (Forsmann run) C-Wilson 80 kickoff return (pass failed) P-Forsmann 1 run (pass failed) C-Jackson 44 run (Jones run) C-Jones 2 run (Jones run) C-Wilson 6 run (Massey run) P-Henry 53 pass from Forsmann (pass failed) C-Wilson 4 run (Wilson run) C-Wilson 42 interception return (Jones run) C-Jackson 38 run (pass failed) C-Harris 31 run (run failed) |
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