| Pirates
lose to Valley, take 2nd at State
The rematch for the state 1A, Div. 1 football championship went the other way this time as the Valley Vikings knocked off the Prairie Pirates 32-54 at Holt Arena in Pocatello Saturday, Nov. 21. 
Prairie started strong as they took the opening kickoff at their own 39 and moved down to a first and goal at the 10, mostly on 3 pass plays. Two of those went to Devin Bruegeman on slants for 20 and 16 yards and the third went to Terran Peery for 12 yards. Two runs by Peery got the Pirates down to the 3. Jake Bruner picked up 2 to set up fourth and goal at the 1. Bruner tried a quarterback sneak but was stopped inches short of the goal line where Valley took over. The Vikings then proceeded to march the ball the length of the field to score the game’s first points with quarterback Ben Taylor connecting with Jacob Henry for the final 31 yards. Taylor passed to Garrett Mussman for the 2-pointer to make it 0-8. Taylor then hit a high pooch kick on the ensuing kickoff with Valley recovering at the Prairie 35. Valley converted twice on fourth down on their way to another score with Taylor keeping the ball on a fourth and 10 from the 20 for the touchdown. Luke Wemhoff batted away the 2-point pass but Prairie still trailed 0-14. Velley tried another short kickoff but Caleb McWilliams caught it on the fly and returned it 8 yards to the Prairie 38. Prairie gained one first down on a 9 yard pass to Brandon Anderson but then came up a yard short again on fourth down with Valley taking over at their own 41. The Vikings converted a third and 24 and 2 fourth down plays on their way to another touchdown. Taylor pass to Kaleb Burk for 6 yards on a fourth and goal for the score. Taylor then ran in the 2-pointer to make it 0-22. Another short kickoff saw Anderson return the ball 9 yards to the Prairie 39. The Pirates finally got on the scoreboard 5 plays later when Bruner connected with Peery on a 31 yard post pattern. Peery then ran in the 2-pointer to make it 8-22. Bobby Hood’s kickoff took a crazy bounce past the Valley return man and Anderson wound up making the tackle at the 4 yard line. Valley picked up a first down at to the 18 and then Taylor connected with Mussman who took the ball the distance for an 82 yard scoring play. The 2-point try failed but Valley was now up 8-28.  Valley
finally kicked deep with Isaiah Shears returning the ball 24 yards to the
38.
Prairie got into Valley territory and again turned the ball over on downs at the Valley 45. Prairie got a break when Burk fumbled on what would have been a first down run with Wemhoff recovering at the Prairie 31. Prairie got to the Valley 45 before time ran out in the half. Prairie kicked off to start the second half and Calvin Korom returned the kick 62 yards to the Prairie 10 with Wemhoff making the touchdown saving tackle. Taylor scored 4 plays later on a fourth down from the 3 and Burk added the 2-pointer to put Valley up 8-36. Prairie turned the ball right back to Valley as Bruner’s pass was intercepted with a facemask penalty on the return putting the Vikings on the Prairie 16. Taylor passed to Burk for the touchdown on the next play to make it 8-42. Prairie turned the ball over on downs at the 50 and Valley again scored, needing just 3 plays to cover 50 yards with Burk running it in from the 27 while breaking several tackled. That put the Vikings up 8-48. Prairie was able to answer back with a 65 yard 9 play drive. A 26 yard pass from Bruner to Brandon Higgins set Prairie up with a first and goal at the 6. Anderson ran it in on the next play. Bruner ran in the 2-pointer to make it 16-48 with 2:23 left in the third quarter. An offensive pass interference penalty cost Valley a first down and Taylor wound up punting out of what looked like a regular play. With no one deep the ball rolled dead on the 7. After 3 incomplete passes, Bruner punted the ball 45 yards to the Valley 48. Prairie stopped Valley on fourth and 1 and took over at their 43. For the first 3 quarters Valley had pretty much shut down the Prairie running game. On this drive Prairie got the running game going as they ran the ball 8 straight times after a pass interference penalty on a drive opening pass attempt moved the ball to the Valley 42. Calvin Hinkelman covered the final 8 yards for the touchdown. Bruner passed to a wide open Higgins for the 2-pointer to cut the deficit to 24-48. Valley made sure Prairie wasn’t going to comeback though as they answered right back with another scoring drive to push the lead to 30 at 24-54 with just 3:03 left to play. Prairie was able to come right back with a score as they took the ball 81 yards in 8 plays with Bruner connected with Peery for the final 19 yards and a touchdown with just 10 seconds left to play that made the final score 32-54. Prairie gained just 107 yards rushing with Peery leading the team with 43 yards on 10 carries. Hinkelman added 32 yards on 6 carries. Bruner had 18 yards on 9 carries and Wemhoff 11 yards on 2 carries. Bruner completed 24 for 41 passes with 1 interception for 279 yards. Peery caught 9 passes for 100 yards, Shears 6 for 55, Bruegeman 4 for 66, Hinkelman 5 for 21, Higgins 2 for 35 and Anderson 1 for 9 yards. Valley had 152 yards rushing on 34 attempts with Burk gaining 87 on 14 carries and Taylor 61 on 12 carries. Taylor complete 18 of 32 pass for 294 yards and Jason Hardy was 1 for 1 for 26 yards. Mussman caught 6 passes for 138 yards, Henry 5 for 73, Taylor Coates 3 for 50, Burk 3 for 32 and Taylor caught the pass from Hardy for 26 yards. Bruner led the Pirates in tackles with 9½. Hinkelman had 7 tackles. Peery had 5½. Anderson had 5. Wemhoff had 3 and a fumble recovery. Shears had 3. Philip Spencer had 1½. Justin Schumacher, Jayce Huling, Bruegeman and Raice Dalgliesh each had 1 tackle. Valley had virtually everyone back from last year’s team that lost to Prairie 72-18. We’re sure they had that score posted in their locker room as incentive this season. The place where they seemed to have the most improvement over last year was in the line play as they kept Prairie’s pass rush from getting to Taylor as Prairie recorded no sacks. They also shut down Prairie’s running game. With the loss Prairie ends their season at 11-1 and received the second place trophy. Prairie has had a 3-year run of 31-4 with a third, first and second place trophy. That compares favorably to the 2008-2010 Pirates who were 32-3 with a first, second and third at state. Both had 23 game winning streaks that came to an end at Holt Arena in a rematch of the previous year’s championship. Prairie is now 0-3 at Holt Arena with the other loss coming in 1989 against Firth in a first round 11-man game at the A-3 level. Prairie 0 8 8 16 -32 Valley 14 14 20 6 -54 V-Henry 31 pass from Taylor (Mussman pass from Taylor) 3:50 1st V-Taylor 20 run (pass failed) 0:58 1st V-Burk 6 pass from Taylor (Taylor run) 7:31 2nd P-Peery 31 pass from Bruner (Peery run) 6:12 2nd V-Mussman 82 pass from Taylor (run failed) 4:27 2nd V-Taylor 2 run (Burk run) 10:11 3rd V-Burk 16 pass from Taylor (pass failed) 9:17 3rd V-Burk 27 run (pass failed) 5:27 3rd P-Anderson 6 run (Bruner run) 2:23 3rd P-Hinkelman 8 run (Higgins pass from Bruner) 8:57 4th V-Coates 4 run (pass failed) 3:03 4th P-Peery 19 pass from Bruner (Peery pass from Bruner) 0:10 4th 
It sure looks like a touchdown! The white clad arms in the middle of the photo are Jake Bruner’s with the football while the goal line is the white line between the orange and green. The ball appears to be well across the goal line but the referees said Bruner came up short and the ball went over to Valley on downs. Bobby Hood is the Prairie player at right.
2015 PHS FOOTBALL September 11-Salmon River, here, 6 p.m., won 58-24 18-Council, here, 6 p.m., Homecoming, won 64-24 25-C.V., there, 7 p.m.*, won 68-0 9-Troy, there, 7 p.m.*, won 74-12 16-Potlatch, here, 7 p.m.*, won 86-6 23-Kamiah, there, 7 p.m.*, won 42-26 30-State Playoffs vs. Wallace, 6 p.m. at Cottonwood, won 72-6 Nov. 6-State Playoffs, vs Oakley, 1 p.m., Kibbie Dome, won 42-22 Nov. 14-State Playoffs, at Raft River, 1 p.m. PST. won 44-30 Nov. 21-State Championship vs. Valley at Pocatello, noon PST, lost 32-54 *league game PIRATES BOYS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE FOR 2015-16 *indicates league game 4-Grangeville, here, Idaho County Shootout, V only, 6 p.m. 8-Asotin, here 10-Kendrick, there 15-Kamiah, there* 18-Lapwai, here* 7-Moscow, here, 4 p.m. 8-C.V., there* 9-Troy, here*, 4 p.m. (Quad) 12-Genesee, there*, 4:30 & 7:30 15-Asotin, there, 4:30 & 7:30 16-Potlatch, here*, 4 p.m. 22-Kamiah, here* 28-Troy, here* 30-Potlatch, there*, 1 p.m. 4-Lapwai, there* 6-C.V., here*, 1 p.m. 9-Moscow, there, 4 p.m. 12-Grangeville, there 15-26-District at LCSC 26-State Play-In #1 TBA 28-State Play-In #2 TBA March 3-5-State at Caldwell |
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