Plainsmen battle but come up short

Richard Anderson photos
Laramie halfback Jon Sorenson looks to get past Green River's Marcos Munoz Friday at Deti Stadium. At left, Laramie's Charles Swearingen, 45, and Tyler English, chase down Green River quarterback Drew Martinez.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

A couple of subtle changes this week put the Laramie Plainsmen back in an offensive frame of mind.

It nearly paid off with a win, but Green River scored with just nine seconds left to hold off the Plainsmen 42-35 Friday night at Deti Stadium.

Despite the loss, the play of the Plainsmen have them thinking playoffs going into next week’s regular season finale against Cheyenne East. Both teams are 2-6 on the season and the winner will certainly move on to the second season.

Laramie head coach Bob Knapton pulled the trigger this week when he inserted sophomore Billy Hysong into the starting quarterback position, shifting previous starter Jon Sorenson back to halfback. Along with senior halfback Dan Estes returning from injury, the Laramie offense looked like a different beast out on the field against the Wolves.

Laramie had struggled at times offensively this season, including in last week’s tough 46-6 loss to Kelly Walsh. Friday night, Sorenson and Estes combined for 340 yards rushing and the Plainsmen matched the high-flying Wolves (6-2) yard-for-yard and point-for-point until the final seconds.

The game came down to the final minute, after Laramie tied the game at 35-each with 53 seconds left on a big 23-yard touchdown pass from Hysong to sophomore halfback Tanner Ibarra.

Unfortunately for the Plainsmen, too much time was left on the clock with University of Wyoming bound Drew Martinez at the helm. Martinez, who gave a verbal commitment to the Cowboys earlier this year, completed three long passes -- 21 yards to Zach Kennah and consecutive passes, 24 and 17 yards to Colter Rood, before Rood scored on an 8-yard run with 9.1 seconds left.

Laramie had one final try to get in the end zone, but fumbled to end the game.

“I thought our kids played hard and that’s exactly what we want them to do,” Knapton said. “If you play your butts off like that, that’s what we want to do. We have one more home game, and if we play like that, we’re going to fight it all of the way down to the end. Hopefully next week is a little different and we get into the playoffs.”

The two teams combined for 870 yards on offense -- 459 by the Wolves and 411 by the Plainsmen.

“You can’t say anything bad about the way that ended up,” Knapton said. “We knew that they would score points and people had been scoring on them, so we just stuck right in there with them. Boy, we just needed a couple of tackles at the end. We had some missed tackles and kind of waited for something better to happen. But we gave them a run for their money.”

The Plainsmen opened the Wolves eyes from the very beginning, when Estes took the first hand-off from Hysong and raced 81 yards for the score. Estes broke a couple of tackles after a short run, including an athletic spin move, and ran untouched the rest of the way.

It was off to the races from that point on, as Martinez and his offense were hard to stop as well, responding with two scores -- a 1-yard TD run by Cody Smart and a 38-yard scoring run from Rood.

Laramie pulled within one on a 2-yard run by senior fullback Charles Swearingen (the PAT failed) and then regained the lead on an 8-yard run by Estes. The Plainsmen got the point back on a two-point run by Estes.

Green River tied the game at 21-each on a 7-yard touchdown pass from Martinez to Kennah. That's how the score stood at halftime.

Again, the Plainsmen answered early in the third quarter on impressive 47-yard power run by Sorenson, only to be answered by the Wolves on a 33-yard touchdown pass from Martinez to Jordan Carroll.

The teams were tied at 28 heading into the fourth quarter.

After stopping Laramie on downs on the Green River 20, the Wolves struck pay dirt on a big 67-yard touchdown pass from Martinez to Rood, who bounced off several would-be Plainsmen tacklers for the score.

Laramie, however, wasn't done and put together a 12-play, 91-yard game-tying drive that was highlighted by the hard-running of Sorenson, who also threw a 14-yard pass to tight end Rylan Harding.

The Wolves, however, had one more drive in them.

Sorenson, who had averaged just 3.1 yards per carry from the quarterback position, found his comfort zone again in the backfield, leading all runners with 175 yards on 23 carries. Estes finished with 165 yards and Swearingen added 27 yards.

“We switched the offense to where we had two running backs coming at them, and they don’t know which way we’re coming from. I thought it worked really well,” Knapton said. "It was a good switch that we made.”

Hysong was 3 of 6 passing for 32 yards and the one score.

"He did a good job of coming in as a sophomore. He’s ready to play now,” Knapton said. “We gave him some time on jayvee to get him ready and he did a great job.”

Martinez, who won't play quarterback the Cowboys, still looked good at running the show, connecting on 8 of 12 passes for 194 yards. Rood caught three balls for 108 yards and added 85 yards on the ground on 11 carries.

“He’s a great athlete. And so is No. 4 ,” Knapton said of Martinez and Rood. “You can’t really start chewing on kids for missed tackles against guys like that because you know what they’re good. You don’t face guys like that every day.”

The Plainsmen need one more win to make the Playoffs and will get the opportunity next Friday at home against East. The T-Birds moved to 2-6 as well with a 34-27 overtime win over Evanston on Friday night.

“We have East next and we’re going to get after it. We’ll start studying on Saturday and get ready to go,” Knapton said. “We’re getting there. You have to get in the ballgame to have a chance to win it. We had our chance to win it, we just have to take one more step. We’ll do whatever it takes to do it. We’ll keep plugging away.”