Pirates season ends with playoff loss to Rams

POLSON — Polson Pirates’ coach Scott Wilson didn’t ponder a number of hypothetical scenarios after his team lost 35-34 at the hands of Billings Central in the Class A quarterfinals Saturday. 

“I think what it really came down to was that you look at every single one of their scores were set up by big plays,” Wilson said. “After our defense did a good job of containing them, the Rams would pop a big run on us.”

Despite the close loss, Wilson said he was “pleased” with his team’s season. The Pirates finished two victories from a berth in the state championship game, captured the conference title with a key victory over Columbia Falls, and secured a first-round bye in the playoffs.

“You know, I was really pleased with where we started and ended this season,” Wilson said. “I thought we improved tremendously throughout the season. Even in this last game, we were right there. A couple of breaks go our way and we would have been playing (again) this weekend.”

Wilson credited his senior players Matthew Rensvold, Tanner Wilson, Cadis Chowning, Jaron Morgan, Walter Wood, Kolby Gralapp, Preston Walbeck, Jonah Burke, Kabe Forman-Webster, and Trevor Corley for their contributions.

Rensvold and Wilson will also continue their football careers to play for the University of Montana Grizzlies.

“The seniors are going to be tough to replace,” Wilson said. “We will encourage our kids to do other sports and try out for basketball, wrestling. and things like that. And for our kids involved in winter sports and winter weight training, we really won’t start other weight lifting until next summer.”

During the course of the game, Wilson said he felt his team “moved the ball well” against Billings.

“After the first quarter, we started to move the ball on them and they did a nice job of controlling the line of scrimmage in a game that was evenly matched,” Wilson said. “When you look at the stats, they had about 400 yards on the ground and only completed one pass. We had a couple hundred in the air and that was a situation where both teams took advantage of their scoring opportunities and seemed to answer each others scores when we needed to.”

As Billings Central advances to play Dillon in the Class A semifinal game, Wilson said the game between the two teams should be “close.”

“When they played Dillon earlier in the year, it came down to who won the battle at the line of scrimmage,” Wilson said. “Whoever can control the tempo of that game is going to win.”

PIRATE STAT PACK

Blgs C 7 7 14 7 – 35

Polson 0 22 6 6 – 34

BC – Evan Barthel 52 run (Josh Kraft kick)

P – Tanner Wilson 6 run (Matt Rensvold run)

P – Wilson 15 run (Colton Cote run)

BC – Noah Smelser 2 run (Kraft kick)

P – Haden Smith 7 pass from Wilson (pass failed)

BC – Ben Voss 71 run (Kraft kick)

BC – Barthel 41 run (Kraft kick)

P – Cadis Chowning 4 pass from Wilson (run failed)

BC – Duncan Kraft 53 run (J. Kraft kick)

P – Wilson 8 run (kick failed)

RUSH – BlgsC 37-420* (Barthel 5-111, Voss 9-106, Huppert 6-108, Smelser 11-43), Polson 43-288 (Wilson 24-188, Cote 14-82, Koby Garcia 1-15, Rensvold 2-3, Chowning 2-0). PASS – BlgsC 1-16* (Jet Campbell 1-6-16), Polson 11-197 (Wilson 11-25-197) REC – BlgsC 1-16 (Chrishon Dixon), Polson 11-97 (Chowning 8-129, Rensvold 2-61, Smith 1-7). PUNT – Wilson 6-174. KORET – Chowning 6-95.

FMBL RCV – Jarod Farrier. TFL – Rensvold, Smith. TKL/ASST – (43t20a) Rensvold 9t2a, Wilson 5t3a, Jonah Burke 4t2a, Koby Garcia 4t1a, Noah Humphrey 4t, Trevor Corley 3t1a, Wood 3t1a, Chowning 2t1a, Andrey Bauer 1t3a, Smith 1t2a, Kyle Druyvestein 1t1a, Cameron Brown 1t1a, Kabe Forman-Webster 1t1a, Wyatt Good 1t1a, Jarod Farrier 1t, Jaron Morgan 1t, Cote 1t. (Sa05Nov16)

Stat data compiled by John Heglie. Polson stats courtesy of Pirate coaching staff. BlgsC stats derived from MaxPreps postings.

BlgsC longest gm rushes (Voss 71, Duncan Kraft 53, Barthel 52, Huppert 50).

BlgsC 9gm rush avg 269.3y/g (Voss 82.7 y/g, Huppert 53.7y/g, Smelser 48.4y/g, Barthel 44.9y/g).

Asterisk (*) denotes host venue sideline stat variant(s): Rush (BC 32-403), Pass/Rec (BC 1-17)