Tongue River And Big Horn Football Teams Prepare For Newcastle And Torrington

The undefeated Tongue River Eagles had to deal with 2 obstacles last week on the road.

An Upton-Sundance team that they had yet to beat and the weather.

The game didn’t start until around 8:30pm.

Head Coach Steve Hanson says that made things interesting for the Eagles, but the team responded well.

“Solid hour and one-half weather delay. Definitely tested our patience and our discipline in that one. I thought given the circumstances we started really strong. We caused some early turnovers, we put points on the board early. You know we did give up a score, which was something that hadn’t happened all year, which is going to happen eventually, but we responded to it really well. We didn’t panic. The team made great adjustments at halftime, and came out in the second half and was able to get another score and then kind of put the game away with some solid defensive play.”

Tonight TR hosts Newcastle beginning at 6 o’clock.

The Dogies won last year in overtime and when you look back at last year’s final standings, that was the game that cost the Eagles a spot in the playoffs.

Coach Hanson says Newcastle has had some consistency problems in the last 2 games.

The Dogies won at Wheatland in double overtime 2 weeks ago, but then got blown out at home by Burns last week.

Coach adds TR is just going to have to do what they’ve been doing, and adjust on the go.

“They’re going to be a tough team. They’re going to run the ball hard, and they’re definitely not going to roll over, but as far as what their true identity is, is it a pass team, or a run first team, we don’t really know yet. We just got to prepare for what we see and play some physical football.”

Meanwhile, Big Horn’s offense scored 40 plus points for the second game in a row last week, the defense came through with a shutout and the Rams didn’t have too many issues dealing with Glenrock.

Head Coach Kirk McLaughlin says there were some good things and a few not so good things that he saw from his team.

“I wouldn’t say it was easy, because the structure of their offense kind of creates that, it’s going to be a physically demanding game, but we did some good things on all aspects of the game. Obviously the defense got a shutout, we did some good things in stopping their rushing attack, forcing them out of their stable play. Special teams came up big. Had a punt blocked that ended in a touchdown, then the next punt, they kind of messed around with their snap, we didn’t really block it necessarily, but tackled the punter, then offensively we got kind of a slow start, but really got it going late.”

Tonight BH is home vs. Torrington…a team that has won the 2A East in each of the past 2 seasons, but this year, the Trailblazers are off to a 1-and-2 start, and lost home to arch-rival Wheatland last week.

McLaughlin says the biggest questions are, will Big Horn face a TrailBlazer team that’s at 100%? And/Or will the opposing coaching staff try some new and different things against the Rams?

“They’ve had some injuries and their best player for sure has been injured. Hasn’t played the last 2 weeks for sure, and we don’t know if he’ll be back. They have a really solid running back that if he’s back from injury, he’ll be tough to stop, so we don’t know what to expect. Their coaching staff does a good job of mixing it up. They’ve got a lot of different looks offensively, so you can’t just dial in on one thing with them. I know they’ll have a wrinkle for us. They’ll have something that we’re not prepared for as well.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 6pm.