Big Horn And Tongue River Football Teams Ready For Thunder Bowl 2023

It’s Thunder Bowl Friday as the Big Horn and Tongue River football teams are set to renew their rivalry at 6pm in Dayton.

TR may lead the overall head-to-head series, but BH has won 11 of the last 12.

For the players, it’s not just a high school rivalry, because the 2 teams have been going against each other back in their elementary and middle school days.

Rams Senior Drew Heerman says just because it’s rivalry week, doesn’t always mean the team needs to put extra emphasis on the match up.

“We look at it as just another game, not to put a bunch of extra stuff on it and go out there and play and give it our all. I expect it to be a close, tough physical game. They come out and they bring good competition and we expect to bring it back.”

Two years ago, TR took a gamble, went for the 2 point conversion and got it with about 1 minute to go to win that game.

Last year, BH would eventually cash in off of an interception and a blocked punt to win a low scoring battle.

Coach Kirk McLaughlin says if there’s anything he’s learned about this rivalry in the past 2 years, is to expect the unexpected.

“I wouldn’t have played out last year’s game like it did and then when we lost 2 years ago I wouldn’t have played it out. I mean, 2 totally different games, but you don’t know what to expect this year and just 2 different teams and both teams got to play clean. If 1 teams makes too many mistakes, the other team is going to win.”

Meanwhile, Tongue River is taking the same approach to this game and not get too worked up beforehand.

Senior Kaleb Kilbride says he’s been in a lot of BH-TR games but this year means more because it’s his last go with it with the pads on.

“It means a ton. You know growing up and playing them in little guy from flag football to the first year of tackle through middle school, the game of the year is always Big Horn no matter what sport or how old you are and so especially to play them here at home, senior year, it’s going to be a big one.”

Without giving a score prediction, Eagles Coach Steve Hanson explains how he thinks the game is going to go.

“It’s not going to be a blowout. It’s going to be the team that keeps their composure. They’re going to make their plays, we’re going to make ours. There’s going to be 3 and outs, there’s going to be turnovers, there’s going to be mistakes, there’s going to be negative yard plays on both sides. We can’t allow one mistake to turn into 2, and we’ve got to capitalize off of their mistakes and that will be the tale of the game. It’s going to be the team that is willing to win the grind.”

If Big Horn wins, the Rams will secure the #1 seed out of the 2A East for the playoffs.

If Tongue River wins, there would be a potential 3-way tie for first, between TR, BH and Torrington, with 1 game remaining in the regular season.