Pirates football experience setbacks in loss big loss to Dillon

If the thriving Polson High School football team had to experience a setback, Pirates’ coach Scott Wilson said he is glad they experienced disappointment in the early stage of the season.

“I would much rather see a game like this early than have it later on in the season,” Wilson said. “Hopefully, our kids understand and can learn from this, and hopefully we can fix the mistakes that we made.”

The Pirates lost Friday night’s contest 38-6 at the hands of top-ranked Dillon at Dillon’s Football Stadium.Wilson said he felt the Pirate’s weaknesses were “exploited” in their early-season loss that now leaves their record at 2-1 overall headed into conference play this Friday against Frenchtown.

“I totally agree Dillon exposed some of our weaknesses,” Wilson said. “We are fortunate that we were exposed and we are now in control of fixing our mistakes. Dillon also played really well on both sides of the ball.” Wilson said.

Polson learned to pay attention to “minor details” of the game in the team’s first loss of the season. The Pirates fall to a 2-1 overall record after winning their first two games against Hamilton and Corvallis.

“They exposed our weaknesses that we had,” Wilson said. “However, we did line up correctly and we had our opportunities but we just didn’t take advantage of them. Dillon got after us and made us pay for lots of little things. In hindsight, we have to try to make sure we take advantage of things that are given to us. You never know what is going to happen if we do those things."

Wilson said Dillon QB Troy Anderson was “formidable” and he felt his team squandered several opportunities to keep themselves in the game.

“I don’t know how much damage was made by Anderson,” Wilson said. “Anderson made some big plays on scrambles when he needed to early on when the game was still a dog fight with them. There were a couple of 3rd and 12 and 3rd and 15 (situations), if we had kept Anderson contained, maybe they would have given us the ball. Instead, in one of those series Dillon went down and scored a touchdown.”

During the game, Wilson said his Pirates dropped three interception opportunities given to them by Dillon’s All State QB Troy Anderson.

“Our team dropped three interception opportunities to stop drives,” Wilson said. “I think Anderson made plays when he needed to and their run-game just wore us down. Their line started to dominate us on both sides of the football.”

Wilson acknowledged his Pirates’ first conference game against Frenchtown, a team headed into its homecoming week, will not be easy.

“I think we are real pleased with where we took our lumps on Friday night,” Wilson said. “We need to let the game against Dillon go and learn from our mistakes. We finished our preseason 2-1 and it’s definitely a good start but we have a long ways to go and a lot of room for improvement.”

Against Dillon, All-Stater Anderson was the focal point. This week, it will be WR Jacob Price who the Pirates’ defense will have to key on.

“I think Price has been a three-year varsity starter for them and he’s a young man they want to try to get the football to,” Wilson said. “We are going to have to be aware of where he is going to be in terms of alignment. I think our biggest focus this week is to make sure we cut out the mistakes in the secondary because their strength is throwing the ball and we blew too many coverages. Hopefully, we can take care of that in practice.”

According to Wilson, the Pirates played uncharacteristically in their loss to Dillon.

“We did some things that were very uncharacteristic (of our team),” Wilson said. “We had several blocking assignment issues, and every now and then a player was unblocked. That never bodes well for you. We didn’t run our routes and we were just kind of out of sync. We have to be in control of the game and definitely get better.” 

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