In a long and rainy gridiron matchup, the first half was anybody’s game, but the Evergreen Plainsmen poured it on to beat the Prairie Falcons, 36-7, at District Stadium on Friday, Oct. 18.
The Falcons, now 1-2 after the Oct. 18 loss in the 3A Greater St. Helens League, have two weeks to flip their league record back to the positive side of the win-loss column. The Falcons next play on the road at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, for a league matchup against the league’s newcomers, the Shelton Highclimbers, which is just a mere 127-mile bus trip for the Falcons.
To finish the season, the Falcons will host the Heritage Timberwolves at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1. The Highclimbers currently sit at 1-2, and the Timberwolves sit at 0-3 in 3A GSHL league play.
The Prairie Falcons and Evergreen Plainsmen both were flat in the first half of last week’s game, with Evergreen landing the first punch on the scoreboard in the second quarter. The game had its fair share of penalties, a time out between coaches, players and the athletic director due to inappropriate language, and even two separate drone delays that postponed momentum for both squads in the rainy game. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter and after another drone delay that Falcons quarterback Devin Vigue connected with wide receiver Alex Blakeslee for Prairie’s lone score.
“We knew coming in this was a decent football team,” Prairie head coach Junior Miller said. “We had a good first half, just didn’t come out in the second half and execute like we talked about at halftime. We did a great job on both sides of the ball in the first half. Unfortunately, we came up short. That’s just how the game works. So we’ll recoup, we’ll finish it out and close these two out with some great execution and great game planning for the next two weeks.”
With the Falcons facing a Friday game after a two-hour bus ride, Miller said his team will be prepared for the matchup.
“Traveling is always tough,” Miller said. “We went to Dallas, Oregon, buses, traffic, whatever it is, we’re going to be prepared … and again, we’ve got a week, full week to plan for it, new league opponent, new whatever they’ve got out there, but we’ll be ready to go.”
After the 36-7 loss, Miller credited his team for the progress it has made this season, later adding that it’s tough for the seniors to have gone through three different head coaches at the varsity level following three different offensive and defensive systems in just four years.
“This team is hungry. They bought into a lot of stuff that we’ve been doing,” Miller said. “Just coming off of last season, they went 2-7. I think they went 2-2 [in league] and went to the tiebreaker again, and who knows where this thing ends up this year. We need a little help at this point just based on what we have, but, you know, picking up a new offense, a new defense in as much time as they have, it’s difficult for any sport or any level of football. So I think from that aspect, we’re throwing in a lot of these guys to make sure that we prepare them the best we can versus what we’re seeing, and they’re taking it all in.”
