Sports
Tongue River Football Prepares For 2022 Thunder Bowl
Published
2 years agoon
The weather on Friday (October 14th) should be good for playing football, but there’s going to be a lot of thunder activity in southern Sheridan County.
Tongue River and Big Horn meet at 2pm, in a game where the winner secures the #1 seed out of the 2A East for the playoffs.
It’s a rivalry game that pits the top 2 offenses in Class 2A vs. each other.
Last week, the Eagles got a challenge from Burns who had the #1 pass defense in the state at the time.
Coach Steve Hanson says TR had to keep the ball on the ground more times than they would’ve liked, but it got them the win even though it wasn’t a comfortable one.
Definitely wasn’t the game we wanted to have, but it was the game we needed to have for sure. That was one thing we talked about this week, we have been tested now. We know what it’s like to win in a close game, we know what it’s like to lean on our defense, to have to execute on special teams and trust our run game, and I feel really confident about where the boys are at and yeah it was definitely a learning experience for us.”
Tongue River now has the best overall defense in the state, and Hanson says Big Horn will test everything the Eagles have on both sides of the ball.
“They’ve got a very complex scheme. They get after you on defense, they can score very quickly, they’ve got great athletes in spots. Garber throws the ball with incredible anticipation. Their offensive line executes up front, they’ve got tough kids to carry the ball and defensively they tackle well. There’s not a major flaw in their game, so we’ve just got to play our best football.”
Senior linebacker Tavis Aksamit says it should be a good game and the rivalry part of things adds to the will to want to win.
“I don’t think we like each other very much and every year it’s like a competition. Every year it’s a good game and so we just want to win this year again, make it back to back. They’re really good, they have pretty much it all, they have fast kids, they’ve got kids that will run hard, they’ve got a great defense. They’ve proven themselves, so it’s going to be a tough game.”
Junior Quarter Connor Cummins says Tongue River has been taking things one game at a time, but the team has occasionally kept an eye on their rivals.
They just have to make sure not to get caught up in the excitement of the rivalry.
“It’s hard not to look forward to this game the entire year, but I think it’s just another game that we just got to go out and execute offensively and defensively, and just play a complete game. With #1 being up for grabs it definitely puts pressure on the game, but we just got to go back to our fundamentals and just remember that we just got to play for each other and if we do that, we’ll be just fine.”
TR won last year to snap a 10-game losing streak vs. BH.
It also marked the Eagles’ first win against the Rams since 2006 (teams didn’t play each other every year between 2006 and now).