Pirates blank Frenchtown in conference football match

The Polson Pirates football team had to overcome the psychological effects of their 38-6 loss at the hands of Dillon last Friday headed into their road match with Frenchtown Friday in Frenchtown.

“When you suffer a defeat, especially the type of defeat against Dillon in terms of losing on the scoreboard, you don’t know how your kids are going to react the next week,” Pirates’ Coach Scott Wilson said. “We came out pretty slow but once they started playing, they played pretty well.”

The Pirates responded with a 33-0 victory over Frenchtown during Frenchtown’s homecoming game Friday in Frenchtown.

“Well, you just try to move and there is a lot of season left,” Wilson said. “Our biggest goal is to fix mistakes we’ve made in the game. When you play good teams, you make a lot of mistakes. We focused on the mistakes that we have control over and we did improve in a few areas but we have a ways to go to get in the right direction.”

In the first quarter, Tanner Wilson scored on a 1-yard run to give them a 7-0 lead at the conclusion of the first quarter.

Wilson had another 4-yard run in the second quarter, and after a failed PAT, made the score 13-0 at the conclusion of the first half.

Wilson struck again with another 4-yard run and after a successful 2-point conversion increased the third quarter lead to 20-0. Late in the third quarter, Tanner Wilson connected with WR Matthew Rensvold on a 36-yard touchdown pass to give them a 27-0 lead at the conclusion of the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Wilson concluded the scoring with a 44-yard touchdown run and gave the Pirates a 33-0 victory.

Wilson attributed his team’s success this to his team’s “balanced attack.”

“Yardage-wise, we had pretty balanced numbers with over 200 yards passing and rushing, and being balanced helped our execution,” Wilson said. “They put us to the test a bit and we were able to overcome. Now we have to build on this and get some momentum going into the rest of our conference games.”

This weekend, the Pirates will play White Fish in its homecoming game Friday at 7 p.m. at Polson High School’s football stadium.

“White Fish really likes to spread the field and they try to run several formations at you,” Wilson said. “They will try to get you in a mismatch, and they use similar terms and style that we play.”

Wilson attributes his team’s success to being able to stay healthy this season.

“I think anytime you can stay healthy and have and have kids that are playing the same positions and the same starters, that really helps build that team chemistry as the season goes on,” Wilson said. “If you are constantly fighting injury, then you never have the opportunity to build that chemistry. We’ve just been fortunate to stay healthy throughout the season.”

PIRATE STAT PACK

Polson 33, Frenchtown 0

Polson 7 6 14 6 – 33

Frenchtown 0 0 0 0 – 0

P - Tanner Wilson 1 run (Jonah Burke kick)

P - Wilson 4 run (PAT failed)

P - Wilson 9 run (Rensvold pass from Wilson)

P - Matt Rensvold 36 pass from Wilson (PAT failed)

P - Wilson 48 run (PAT failed)

RUSH – Polson 36-290 (Wilson 19-176, Colton Cote 14-103, Koby Garcia 2-13, Colby Soderquist 1-(-2)), Frenchtown 26-59. PASS – Polson (Wilson 12-21-204), Frenchtown (Ty Hoppie 5-15-72). REC – Polson 12-204 (Rensvold 9-179, Cadis Chowning 2-17, Haden Smith 1-8), Frenchtown 5-72. PUNT – Wilson 2-60. PUNT RET – Chowning 5-33. KO RET – Walter Wood 1-26. INT – Chowning. TIP – Wood, Cameron Brown, Burke. SACK – Kabe Forman-Webster 5, Burke, Rensvold, Trevor Corley, Noah Humphrey. HARASS – Rensvold 2. TFL – Rensvold 2, Smith, Kyle Druyvestein, Vincent Bird-Webster. TKL/ASST (48t22a) – Kabe F-W 8t2a, Rensvold 7t2a, Bird-Webster 4t2a, Garcia 4t1a, Wyatt Goode 4t1a, Chowning 3t1a, Wilson 3t, Burke 2t3a, Smith 2t1a, Druyvestein 2t1a, Andrey Bauer 2t, Humphrey 1t3a, Brown 1t2a, Cote 1t1a, Wood 1t1a, Hunter Fritsch 1t1a, Corley 1t, Treylon Mitchell 1t.