The Big Sandy Pioneers football team (8-1) is coming off of its first defeat in nearly two seasons. The Pioneers were beat by C-J-I last Friday night, (54-16). Big Sandy led early, (8-6) and were down by only nine points near the end of the first half, but were outscored (29-0) in the second half. The Pioneers also lost key playmakers like Cooper Taylor, Sam Cox, and Karter Jurenka to injury.
Head coach Larry Jappe explained where his team lost control of the game.
“Injuries and turnovers,” Jappe said. “We uncharacteristically turned the ball over inside the red zone probably five times.”
“C-J-I is a good team and they capitalized on our mistakes,” Jappe continued. “We tried to prepare for them.”
Jappe still was able to motivate the team with its performance despite the scoreboard.
“We took away some positive things from that game,” Jappe said. “We moved the ball well (and) just made mistakes when we shouldn’t have (and) our tackling wasn’t great in the game.”
The Pioneers will now have to turn the page quickly because they have to defend their 6-man state championship title. The first round of playoffs will take place at home against MonDak, a co-op from the towns of Westby, MT and Grenora, ND. The Thunder come into this matchup at (7-2) overall and possess some skills that Coach Jappe explains to the New Media Broadcasters listeners as well as the adjustments that need to be made on his side.
“We’ve just been watching game film on them,” Jappe said. “They run a spread offense pretty much exclusively.”
“We’re just going to have to make good open-field tackles and get pressure on the quarterback,” Jappe continued. “Offensively, especially with this weather, we’re probably going to have to run the ball like we used to and I hope that works out for us.”
Listen to MonDak-Big Sandy on Saturday at 1pm on KRYK-101.3 with Noah Friedman behind the mic.
