Richard Anderson photo
The Laramie Plainsmen will host No. 2 Green River Friday night at Deti Stadium.
By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org
Despite a couple of tough weeks, the Laramie High School football team still has plenty to play for this season. Friday night‘s foe, though, won’t likely feel sorry for the Plainsmen.
The Plainsmen, 1-5 on the season and 0-2 in South Conference action, need a couple of wins to have a shot at the state playoffs this season and will look for a breakthrough against No. 2 Green River Friday night at 7 p.m. at Deti Stadium.
Despite some long odds on paper, Laramie head coach Bob Knapton said they might as well start that late-season push this weekend.
“This is a great opportunity for our team,” Knapton said. “You play a good team and people are going to look at that good team. There are a lot of people scouting that team. They have a lot of players who may go play somewhere. You want to do a good job? Do a good job against a good team and you’ll get noticed.”
While it would be a big win over Green River, Laramie’s next two opponents are also fighting for the playoffs as well. Knapton said his players need to realize that although this is going to be a tough game, the season is not over, as they close against Rock Springs and Cheyenne Central.
“The way it works out, the other two teams that need to get in the playoffs are the two teams we have left to play,” he said. “When you look at Rock Springs and Central, they’re not guaranteed in either. If they want in, they have to beat us. If we want in, we have to beat them. We have some games left that, if we pull it all together, we can make things happen.”
For the Plainsmen to have success Friday night and for the rest of the season, they need to put both sides of the football together at once. At times this season, the Laramie defense has been fairly solid while the offense has struggled. Last week, the Laramie offense piled up nearly 400 yards on offense and scored three touchdown, but the defense couldn’t stop Evanston’s rushing attack, led by Cory Anthos (271 yards of total offense) in the 51-23 loss.
“If you’re going to score, you still have to stop people. That’s our big thing,” Knapton said. “We finally got to the point where we can put some more things to get outside, we can do a few more things with our offense to kind of keep them from bunching up on us. But it is like a flip-flop. One week our offense doesn’t do much and our defense was keeping us in games. Now, all of the sudden, our defense is letting people run all over us. We have to get to the point where both of them come together.”
To say the Wolves will be a challenge for the Laramie defense might be an understatement. Green River comes into the game averaging 38 points per contest and has had 17 players run the football this season, averaging a state-high 345 yards per game.
“We have people not filling (holes), not making tackles, not doing the stuff that they are supposed to be doing,” Knapton said. “We’ve worked a lot on that. We’re trying to find people; we’re rotating some guys around. You better be able to come up from the outside and be able to read it, come up and make a tackle. This will be a good week to see if that is starting to pay off, because they have a lot of good running backs and they attack the outside pretty good. They have a lot of misdirection, they have some good linemen. We want to see how we stack up.”
The Wolves have five players running for at least 100 yards this season, led by Colter Rood’s 447 yards on 46 carries and Mike James with 421 yards on 44 rushes. Quarterback Drew Martinez has run the ball 34 times for 385 yards, followed by Derek Cutler with 199 yards and Cooper Palmer with 123 yards.
“Their second-string running backs are just as good,” Knapton said. “They have five or six running backs who can run the ball, who have good speed. We’re going to read our keys right, so we know where the ball is going. We’ll see how it works out.”
Martinez is also 24 of 39 passing for 495 yards and four touchdowns for the Wolves (4-1 on the season, 2-0 in league play). Green River’s only loss was at Gillette, 14-13 on Sept. 20. Last week, the Wolves crushed Kelly Walsh 57-27.
“I think when they lost that game to Gillette, it woke them up a bit,” Knapton said. “I think they are trying to prove a point. They beat Kelly Walsh pretty bad. They were up on them pretty good and they were doing quite a few things to make sure they were scoring more points. I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of mercy from them. If they can score 60 points, they’ll score 60 points. If they can score 70, they’ll score 70.”
Another area of concern for the Plainsmen has been with penalties. Last week, Laramie was flagged 16 times for 163 yards.
“We’re going to have to have our kids ready to play ball and we’re going to eliminate some of our penalties,” Knapton said. “It’s like I told the kids; if you can’t eliminate some of your penalties, you’re not going to be out there. They better straighten up and play football the way it is supposed to be played, not getting frustrated and mad and getting personal fouls. Our biggest goal is that we make sure we go out there and play football and eliminate penalties.”
Health-wise, junior starting wingback Jon Sorenson has been hobbled by a knee injury and could be limited against the Wolves. The Plainsmen have also been hit with some sickness this week as well.
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Plainsmen vs. Wolves
LHS starting lineup
Offense
QB -- Coleton Wilson (6-2, 205, Sr.)
FB -- Charles Swearingen (6-0, 215, Jr.)
WB -- Luke Knapton (6-2, 180, Jr.)
TE -- Marshall Fisher (6-2, 205, Jr.)
LT -- James Van Kirk (6-1, 230, Sr.)
LG -- Allan Saunders (5-11, 215, Jr.)
C -- Ben Farber (6-1, 245, Jr.)
RG -- Allen West (6-3, 225, Sr.)
RT -- Nick Yelton (6-3, 245, Sr.)
TE -- Tyler English (6-2, 195, Jr.)
WB -- Jon Sorenson (6-0, 195, Jr.)
PK -- Alex Zuniga (5-8, 155, Sr.)
Defense
Tackle -- Ben Farber (6-1, 245, Jr.)
Nose guard -- Wes Dalles (6-0, 175, So.)
Tackle -- Nick Armijo (6-0, 205, Sr.)
DE -- Charles Swearingen (6-0, 215, Jr.)
WLB -- Nathan Clark (5-8, 165, Jr.)
BLB -- Tyler English (6-2, 195, Jr.)
MLB -- Luke Knapton (6-2, 180, Jr.)
FC -- Nathan Cowper (6-2, 175, Jr.)
BC -- Kelby Wilkison (5-11, 165, Jr.)
SS -- Jon Sorenson (6-0, 195, Jr.)
FS -- Rylan Harding (5-11, 175, Jr.)
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Plainsmen Statistics
(Counting Steamboat Springs game)
Rushing
Jon Sorenson: 76-433 & 3TD; Charles Swearingen: 62-338 & 2TDs; Mike Lanich: 31-49 & 1TD; Coleton Wilson: 31-32 & 2TDs; Kelby Wilkison: 1-17 & 0TDs; Allen West: 1-0 & 0TDs; Luke Knapton: 45-247 & 1TD, Phillip Callahan 17-47 & 0TDs, Derek Shaneman 1-2, Nate Clark 1-(minus 5). Totals: 266-1,160 & 9 TDS
Passing
Coleton Wilson: 24-62-3 233 & 1TD, Jon Sorenson 0-9-1 0. Totals: 24-71-4 233 & 1TD.
Receiving
Tyler English: 1-25 & 0TDs; Marshall Fisher 2-14 & 0TDs, Nathan Cowper 5-49 & 0TDs; Jon Sorenson 6-42 & 1TD; Luke Knapton 5-47 & 0TDs; Charles Swearingen 3-28 & 0TDs, Rylan Harding 2-28 & 0TDs. Totals: 24-233 & 1TD.
Defense
Luke Knapton 116.5 points, Allen West 56, Tyler English 55, Kelby Wilkison 54, Nathan Cowper 50, Jon Sorenson 48,, Nick Armijo 48, Nathan Clark 29, Rylan Harding 28,, Austin Ontiveroz 24, Charles Swearingen 22, Trent Schneider 21, Ben Farber 18 , Dylan Kramshuster 9, Coleton Wilson 7, Devin Garcia 5.5, Nick Yelton 5.5, Wes Dalles 4.5, Alex Zuniga 4, Bryce Kemzt 2, Tyler Cowdel 2, Dillon Elliott 1, Phillip Callahan 3, Brody Burnett 1.
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