After a slow start, the Wind River offense kicked into high gear in the middle periods at Greybull Friday night pouring in 50 unanswered points en route to a 64-14 blowout of the Buffs. The win was their sixth straight and sets up a huge home game next Thursday against Shoshoni at 7 p.m.
The Cougars and Wranglers will play for the West 9-man conference championship with both squads sporting perfect 5-0 conference records.
Wind River is a running team behind the tandem of Jaycee Herbert and Cooper Frederick, but it is the blocking of Casey Befus, Tucker Jensen, Trapper Hallock, Kaden Jones, Calder Johnson, Kazaia Jones, and Julien Tatro that gets the running game in high gear.
Friday the Cougars displayed another facet of their offense in throwing for five touchdown passes.
The Cougars scored early, just 2:34 into the game on a 22-yard from Carter Fowler to Chris Burke.
Greybull couldn’t move the ball, but the Cougars fumbled on their next drive with Buff defender Josh Lopez covering the ball at the Wind River 41-yard line. The Buffs passed their way inside the five-yard line where Jake Schlatmann crashed in from the one. Schlatmann caught the conversion pass from Jeff Hunt and the score was tied at the end of the opening period.
The scoring gates opened early in the second quarter when Herbert broke around left end on a jet sweep and then sprinted away from the Greybull defenders on a 90-yard scamper. A few minutes later Frederick capped a long drive with a four-yard run.
Fowler kept the defense guessing on Wind River’s final score of the period via a 32-yard pass to Herbert. The Cougars led 28-8 at the half.
The third period was another offensive outburst, something Wind River has done in all but one game this season.
Frederick started the fireworks with a 23-yard touchdown run before the Cougars went back to the air.
Herbert scored again, this time with a 32-yard pass from Chris Burke. Burke connected on another scoring pass to tight end Blake Snyder, and Fowler finished the aerial assault with another pass to Herbert for 28 yards and a touchdown.
The Fowler to Herbert connection set the mercy rule into play with 56 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
The final period was fast-moving with the running clock.
Greybull scored with 1:12 left in the game against the Cougar reserves on an eight-yard pass from Hunt to Yandel Hernandez.
The final score came on a surprising play. Greybull tried an onside kick that backfired on the Buffs. Wind River freshman Cameron Wisecup set up on the left side of the front line awaiting the kick. The ball sailed directly into his hands. He took off as the Greybull kicking team tried to recover the onside attempt and raced untouched 51 yards for the final score of the game with just four seconds left in the game.
The next two weeks bring the biggest challenges of the season aside from the trip to Big Piney three weeks ago.
Wind River hosts Shoshoni and Rocky Mountain on consecutive Thursdays.
Win both and the Cougars are conference champions, beat just the Wranglers and they’re conference champions. Lose both and they’ll be on the road for the playoffs in three weeks at Southeast Goshen.
WIND RIVER 8 20 30 6 – 64
GREYBULL 8 0 0 6 – 14
First Quarter
WR – Chris Burke 22-pass from Carter Fowler (Fowler run) 9:26
GRE – Jake Schlatmann 1-run (Schlatmann from Jeff Hunt) 3:49
Second Quarter
WR – Jaycee Herbert 90-run (run failed) 10:51
WR – Cooper Frederick 4-run (Burke run) 6:13
WR – Herbert 32-pass from Fowler (run failed) 3:08
Third Quarter
WR – Cooper 23-run (Burke run) 9:57
WR – Herbert 32-pass from Burke (Burke run) 7:53
WR – Blake Snyder 18-pass from Burke (run failed) 4:18
WR – Herbert 28-pass from Fowler (Calder Johnson run):56
Fourth Quarter
GRE – Yandel Hernandez 8-pass from Hunt (run failed) 1:12
WR – Cameron Wisecup 51-kickoff return (run failed) :04
Rushing: Wind River – Cooper Frederick 13-195, Jaycee Herbert 4-99, Chris Burke 4-19, Carter Fowler 3-3, Calder Johnson 1-0, Jacob Hardcastle 2-(-4), Darian Perry 1-7, Greybull – Isaak Gaytan 2-3, Lucas Bolzer 9-18, Joel Miller 3-(-17), Yandel Hernandez 1-3, Aiden Reece 6-(-8), Jesus Rodriguez 2-0, Jake Schlatmann 3-(-3)
Passing: Wind River – Carter Fowler 4-8 56, Chris Burke 3-3 47, Greybull – Joel Miller 7-12 97, Jake Schlatmann 1-45, Caden Hunt – 10-26-1 134
Receiving: Wind River – Juaquin Stevens 1-21, Cooper Frederick 1-1, Chris Burke 1-22, Jaycee Herbert 2-60, Kaden Jones 1-34, Blake Snyder 1-18, Greybull – Aiden Reece 6-114, Yandel Hernandez 2-16, Jake Schlatmann 3-39, Lucas Bolzer 3-29, Wyatt Didrickson 1-13
Interception: Wambli Romero