| Pirates
edged by Notus in state playoff game
A Prairie Pirate squad beset by injury and illness still almost won their opening round state playoff game at  Notus
Saturday, Nov. 5, falling by a score of 36-38.
The big loss to injury was starting quarterback/defensive end Spencer Schumacher, who injured his knee earlier in the week during practice. Illness took out a couple more players and before the game was over Brandon Anderson was hurt and wouldn’t have been able to play next week if the Pirates had won. Defense dominated the early going as neither team moved the ball on their first two possessions. For their third possession Notus took over at the 50 after a Prairie fumble and needed just 1 play to score as Chase Slate got open behind the defense and went 50 yards with a pass from Caleb Zimmerman. Prairie was able to answer right back through on their third possession. Carson Schmidt covered an onside kick at the Prairie 47. Luke Wemhoff picked up 11 yards to the right. Anderson went up the middle for 5 and Wemhoff for 6. From the 31, Wemhoff took a pitch from quarterback Devin Ross around left end and went 31 yards for the touchdown. Anderson moved to quarterback for the 2-pointer and took the ball in for the tying 2-pointer. Notus took back the lead early in the second quarter when Zimmerman connected with Mark Green for 37 yards. The 2-point try failed with Notus leading 8-14. Prairie took over at their own 37 and Wemhoff needed just 1 play to go 63 yards for the tying touchdown. He broke a tackle about 8 yards downfield and then outran the defense the rest of the way. Wemhoff then ran in the 2-pointer to give Prairie their first lead of the game at 16-14. Notus threatened to take the lead back as they moved down to the 2 yard line but Jake Stubbers intercepted a pass in the end zone to end that threat. Prairie was able to move the ball out to midfield but then had to punt. Notus came right back down the field, completing 5 of 6 pass attempts, with Slate catching the fifth for 32 yards and the touchdown. Zimmerman ran in the 2-poitner for a 16-22 Notus lead. Notus then recovered the onside kick but Stubbers picked off another pass as the half ran out. Prairie received the second half kickoff and moved into Notus territory where a fumble ended the threat. Prairie got the ball right back though as Michael Schwartz intercepted a Zimmerman pass. Prairie was forced to punt as was Notus. Prairie took over at their own 40 and ran 10 straight running plays. They had Anderson at quarterback in the wildcat formation and he wound up scoring the tying touchdown from 8 yards out. The 2-point try failed leaving the score tied at 22-22. Prairie forced Notus to punt again and took over at the Notus 45 after a 35 yard return by Anderson. Prairie then pulled out the hook and lateral play as Anderson passes to Hunter Chaffee who just got the lateral off before being tackled to Wemhoff who took the ball 45 yards to the end zone. Wemhoff ran in the 2-pinter for a 30-22 Prairie lead with 11:38 left to play. Notus ran their own hook and lateral for a 37 yard gain to help set up the tying score. They wound up scoring on a halfback option pass from Brandon Patrick to Jacob  Godina
for 11 yards. Zimmerman passed to Green for the tying 2-point conversion.
Prairie came right back though as Wemhoff gathered in the only deep kickoff of the game by Notus at the 13 yard line and took it 87 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. The 2-point try was a huge plays in a couple of ways. First of all Anderson was stopped just short of the goal-line and second of all took a helmet-to-helmet hit on the tackle that left him with a likely concussion. Prairie was able to force Notus to punt after 3 straight incomplete passes that weren’t without some controversy. A second down play saw Jayce Huling put a big rush on Zimmerman forcing an apparent intentional grounding. It was determined there was an available receiver and the ball was at first spotted at the point of the pass. Then it got moved back to the original line of scrimmage as it was deemed an incomplete pass. In all of that the down marker hadn’t been changed and what was actually fourth down was showing as third down. When it was all sorted out, Notus punted with the ball rolling dead at the Prairie 12. Ross went back in at quarterback and a bad center exchange led to a turnover. The defense rose up and stopped Notus, as Caleb McWilliams and Schwartz combined to tackled Zimmerman for no gain on fourth and 6 from the 8. A facemask penalty on a run by McWilliams and 25 yards by Wemhoff got the ball out to midfield but Prairie’s fourth down pass from the Notus 41 fell incomplete. Notus took over with 3:07 to play and picked up a couple of first downs on runs. Another run got them to the Prairie 30. Notus then ran an apparent jet sweep by wideout Godina that had just gained 11 yards a couple plays earlier but this time Godina checked up and tossed a pass to a wide open Slate who scored the tying touchdown. Zimmerman then ran in the go-ahead 2-pointer with 1:18 left to play. Prairie got an 11 yard return from McWilliams to take over at the Notus 47. Ross passed to Wemhoff, who fumbled but Jace Perrin recovered for a 10 yard gain and a first down. Back to back penalties set the Pirates back. Eventually they wound up at the Notus 39 with just 2 seconds left. Prairie tried another hook and lateral play but Derik Shears wasn’t able to haul in Ross’ pass. If he had Wemhoff was well-positioned to take the lateral for the winning touchdown. Wemhoff wound up leading the offense with 228 yards rushing on 28 carries. It was Wemhoff’s fourth straight game with at least 200 yards and gives him 1,630 on the season on 155 carries for an average of 10.5 yards per carry. Anderson added 43 yards on 15 carries and Chaffee had 17 yards on 1 carry as Prairie totaled 270 rushing yards on 49 attempts. Ross completed 3 of 6 passes for 33 yards while Anderson was 3 for 3 for 62 yards. Chaffee caught 3 passes for 13 yards. Wemhoff caught 2 for 23 and had another 44 yards on the lateral. Shears caught 1 for 15 yards. Notus had just 77 yards rushing on 27 attempts but made up for it with 373 yards passing. Zimmerman was 18 for 28 with an interception for 332 yards. Patrick was 1 for 2 for 11 yards with an interception and Godina was 1 for 2 for 30 yards with an interception. Slate caught 5 passes for 132 yards, Godina 7 for 121 and Green 6 for 90. Wemhoff led the defense with 9 tackles with McWilliams adding 7.5. Huling had 6 tackles with Anderson adding 5. Perrin had 4.5, Stubbers had 4 and 2 interceptions. Schwartz had 3 and an interception. Dereck Arnzen had 2 tackles and Owen Anderson and Hayden Uhlenkott had 1 each. With the loss Prairie’s season comes to an end with a 7-3 record. The White Pine League did not have a great state tournament this year as Lapwai lost to Oakley and Troy lost to Raft River. Prairie 8 8 6 14 -36 Notus 8 14 0 16 -38 N-Slate 50 pass from Zimmerman (Green pass from Zimmerman) 5:10 1st P-Wemhoff 31 run (B. Anderson run) 3:56 1st N-Green 37 pass from Zimmerman (pass failed) 8:49 2nd P-Wemhoff 63 run (Wemhoff run) 8:33 2nd N-Slate 32 pass from Zimmerman (Zimmerman run) 0:06 2nd P-B. Anderson 8 run (run failed) 2:03 3rd P-Wemhoff 45 lateral from Chaffee (Wemhoff run) 11:38 4th N-Godina 11 pass from Patrick (Green pass from Zimmerman) 8:54 4th P-Wemhoff 87 kickoff return (run failed) 8:40 4th N-Slate 30 pass from Godina (Zimmerman run) 1:18 4th
Luke Wemhoff carries the ball as Derik Shears looks to make a block. In the background is quarterback Devin Ross. PIRATES BOYS FOOTBALL SCHEDULE FOR 2016 9-Salmon River, there, 6 p.m., lost 26-30. 16-Council, there, 6 p.m., won 42-0 23-C.V.*, here, won 66-26 30-Kamiah*, there, won 66-20 15-Wallace*, here, won 62-26 21-Potlatch*, there, won 76-20 28-JV vs. Lapwai, 5th Quarter, here, 6 p.m., cancelled 28-Lapwai, here,* lost 40-54 *League Game PIRATES JR. HIGH BOYS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE FOR 2016-2017 15-Lapwai, there 17-Orofino, here 28-Asotin, here 29-Kamiah, here 13-C.V., there 15-Grangeville, here |
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